Sarver ESPN story

[Ghost of Kleine]

So anyone know who first put this out finally today? Please don't tell me it was flex either!
Mike Vigil (@protectedpick) Tweeted:
Robert Sarver is a psychopath who should not own an NBA team. https://t.co/V6n54SdwRl

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Jay Beacham (@jay_beacham) Tweeted:
@Baxter @wojespn PACK HIM UPPPPP LETS GOOO https://t.co/3Cz0vwSYFL

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Sorry if any of this is out of sequence. Just catching up to everyone on this!

[Revived]

Immediately after the game, according to staffers, Sarver marched into the coaches locker room and unloaded, berating head coach Igor Kokoskov and his assistants, demanding answers as to why they didn't "make any adjustments" to stop the burly Grizzlies center.

Veteran assistant Joe Prunty, who did not respond to a request for comment, spoke up, saying the short-handed Suns had made several in-game adjustments -- fronting Valanciunas, doubling him on the catch, explaining other basketball minutiae.

"Joe starts throwing all the s--- at him, [and] the guy has no idea what any of that means," said one former coach, details that others in the room confirmed. Sarver, livid, marched toward the door and screamed "No adjustments!" on his way out.

The next month, Kokoskov, who declined to comment, and his assistants, less than a year into their tenure in Phoenix, were fired.

One former longtime staffer said similar outbursts happened so often that he lost count. "He was constantly meddling and trying to coach himself or go into the coaches' office and start drawing X's and O's on the board at halftime and tell them they need to do this, they need to do that."

Sarver's habit of second-guessing coaches included working with then-rookie Ayton on shooting 3-pointers, an element of Ayton's game the coaches didn't believe should be his focus, then-members of the coaching staff said.

In another instance that season, Sarver went into the training room to talk X's and O's with rookie guard Elie Okobo. Veteran guard Jamal Crawford left the room.

"He actually got up off the table and walked out of the room and said, 'I can't f---ing listen to this s---. I gotta get out of here,'" a second former staffer said. The former longtime staffer in the room confirmed the scene to ESPN. Crawford declined to comment.

Jamal Crawford is probably one of the most well respected guys in the league. The fact that he declined to comment rather than deny this happening means this part probably happened.

Sarver probably knows less about Xs and Os in basketball than most of this forum and the guys on Suns Twitter that are bloggers and such

[darealjuice]

Would love to be proven wrong, but I can't imagine this story is enough to get Sarver ousted. I have little doubt that he did basically everything in the story, unfortunately the racism-related stuff that could get him in trouble seems a bit he-said-she-said. I doubt anyone is surprised that he fosters a **** work environment and is an all around ****, and obviously his legal team jumped on this story before it got out.

Please prove me wrong Silver.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Baxter Holmes (@Baxter) Tweeted:
“If the commissioner comes in and investigates to see what the f--- is going on in Phoenix, [he]
would be appalled.”
 
Based on interviews w/ 70+ current & former employees throughout his 17-year tenure as owner, my story on Robert Sarver’s Phoenix Suns: https://t.co/PMvMyBdr2N

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[Jdiddy701]

Would love to be proven wrong, but I can't imagine this story is enough to get Sarver ousted. I have little doubt that he did basically everything in the story, unfortunately the racism-related stuff that could get him in trouble seems a bit he-said-she-said. I doubt anyone is surprised that he fosters a **** work environment and is an all around ****, and obviously his legal team jumped on this story before it got out.

Please prove me wrong Silver.

I feel the same way - don’t think it’s enough to get rid of him, which is worse for us. If Sarver sticks around, our franchise is doomed. Nobody will want to come play for us.. agents will get look elsewhere for their players. We really are screwed, BIG TIME


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[BobbieL]

Immediately after the game, according to staffers, Sarver marched into the coaches locker room and unloaded, berating head coach Igor Kokoskov and his assistants, demanding answers as to why they didn't "make any adjustments" to stop the burly Grizzlies center.

Veteran assistant Joe Prunty, who did not respond to a request for comment, spoke up, saying the short-handed Suns had made several in-game adjustments -- fronting Valanciunas, doubling him on the catch, explaining other basketball minutiae.

"Joe starts throwing all the s--- at him, [and] the guy has no idea what any of that means," said one former coach, details that others in the room confirmed. Sarver, livid, marched toward the door and screamed "No adjustments!" on his way out.

The next month, Kokoskov, who declined to comment, and his assistants, less than a year into their tenure in Phoenix, were fired.

One former longtime staffer said similar outbursts happened so often that he lost count. "He was constantly meddling and trying to coach himself or go into the coaches' office and start drawing X's and O's on the board at halftime and tell them they need to do this, they need to do that."

Sarver's habit of second-guessing coaches included working with then-rookie Ayton on shooting 3-pointers, an element of Ayton's game the coaches didn't believe should be his focus, then-members of the coaching staff said.

In another instance that season, Sarver went into the training room to talk X's and O's with rookie guard Elie Okobo. Veteran guard Jamal Crawford left the room.

"He actually got up off the table and walked out of the room and said, 'I can't f---ing listen to this s---. I gotta get out of here,'" a second former staffer said. The former longtime staffer in the room confirmed the scene to ESPN. Crawford declined to comment.

Jamal Crawford is probably one of the most well respected guys in the league. The fact that he declined to comment rather than deny this happening means this part probably happened.

Sarver probably knows less about Xs and Os in basketball than most of this forum and the guys on Suns Twitter that are bloggers and such

I have a feeling that part is true as when he was pseudo-GM after letting Kerr walk out the door - out went Amare
in case Warrick, Hedo (for the Blur), and Josh Childress - so for sure, he "thinks" he knows baskteball

[WeekapaugGroove]

Would love to be proven wrong, but I can't imagine this story is enough to get Sarver ousted. I have little doubt that he did basically everything in the story, unfortunately the racism-related stuff that could get him in trouble seems a bit he-said-she-said. I doubt anyone is surprised that he fosters a **** work environment and is an all around ****, and obviously his legal team jumped on this story before it got out.

Please prove me wrong Silver.

Yup. And the ironic part is his ego and just general **** personality that got him into this mess will lead him to dig in his heels and fight this. And when it comes to ousting an owner there's a legal aspect and unless there's more proof than is being presented I'm not sure a court would actually make him sell.

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[darealjuice]

Would love to be proven wrong, but I can't imagine this story is enough to get Sarver ousted. I have little doubt that he did basically everything in the story, unfortunately the racism-related stuff that could get him in trouble seems a bit he-said-she-said. I doubt anyone is surprised that he fosters a **** work environment and is an all around ****, and obviously his legal team jumped on this story before it got out.

Please prove me wrong Silver.

Yup. And the ironic part is his ego and just general **** personality that got him into this mess will lead him to dig in his heels and fight this. And when it comes to ousting an owner there's a legal aspect and unless there's more proof than is being presented I'm not sure a court would actually make him sell.

Sent from my SM-G986U using RealGM mobile app

I'd say the fact that this story got white washed by his legal team is clear evidence that attempts at forcing him out would be met with retaliation. Without emails or recordings I doubt Sarver goes anywhere anyways. It will be interesting to see how the league, team, and even other players respond though.

[Slim Charless]

Sarver needs to go. Scumbag was using the "N" word? In a league with 90% black men? POS

Larry Ellison, come on down.

All of us need to be sending thank you tweets to ESPN/Baxter Holmes.

This. Is. Our. Moment.

[BobbieL]

Would love to be proven wrong, but I can't imagine this story is enough to get Sarver ousted. I have little doubt that he did basically everything in the story, unfortunately the racism-related stuff that could get him in trouble seems a bit he-said-she-said. I doubt anyone is surprised that he fosters a **** work environment and is an all around ****, and obviously his legal team jumped on this story before it got out.

Please prove me wrong Silver.

Yup. And the ironic part is his ego and just general **** personality that got him into this mess will lead him to dig in his heels and fight this. And when it comes to ousting an owner there's a legal aspect and unless there's more proof than is being presented I'm not sure a court would actually make him sell.

Sent from my SM-G986U using RealGM mobile app

I'd say the fact that this story got white washed by his legal team is clear evidence that attempts at forcing him out would be met with retaliation. Without emails or recordings I doubt Sarver goes anywhere anyways. It will be interesting to see how the league, team, and even other players respond though.

Not sure the team is worth - I thnk $1.8B. But Bobby S could get offered like $2.5B - his ego still would not want to sell the team

His ego is wrapped around being the owner of an NBA basketball team

[Revived]

The fact that this got leaked early was probably the best thing to happen to Sarver. He was able to get on defense and prepare for what’s about to drop.

I think it got leaked by someone at ESPN that’s on Sarver’s payroll. All these owners have some of their own guys in the big media companies.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Would love to be proven wrong, but I can't imagine this story is enough to get Sarver ousted. I have little doubt that he did basically everything in the story, unfortunately the racism-related stuff that could get him in trouble seems a bit he-said-she-said. I doubt anyone is surprised that he fosters a **** work environment and is an all around ****, and obviously his legal team jumped on this story before it got out.

Please prove me wrong Silver.

Yup. And the ironic part is his ego and just general **** personality that got him into this mess will lead him to dig in his heels and fight this. And when it comes to ousting an owner there's a legal aspect and unless there's more proof than is being presented I'm not sure a court would actually make him sell.

Sent from my SM-G986U using RealGM mobile app

I'd say the fact that this story got white washed by his legal team is clear evidence that attempts at forcing him out would be met with retaliation. Without emails or recordings I doubt Sarver goes anywhere anyways. It will be interesting to see how the league, team, and even other players respond though.

Yup. The avenue where this article leads to him gone is I would imagine the NBA will now do an investigation and maybe they then find the smoking gun.

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[Slim Charless]

Would love to be proven wrong, but I can't imagine this story is enough to get Sarver ousted. I have little doubt that he did basically everything in the story, unfortunately the racism-related stuff that could get him in trouble seems a bit he-said-she-said. I doubt anyone is surprised that he fosters a **** work environment and is an all around ****, and obviously his legal team jumped on this story before it got out.

Please prove me wrong Silver.

Yup. And the ironic part is his ego and just general **** personality that got him into this mess will lead him to dig in his heels and fight this. And when it comes to ousting an owner there's a legal aspect and unless there's more proof than is being presented I'm not sure a court would actually make him sell.

Sent from my SM-G986U using RealGM mobile app

I'd say the fact that this story got white washed by his legal team is clear evidence that attempts at forcing him out would be met with retaliation. Without emails or recordings I doubt Sarver goes anywhere anyways. It will be interesting to see how the league, team, and even other players respond though.

Dude. You realize he used the N-word in front of his black coach multiple times in reference to another black player-a vocal HOFer at that?

They have guys worth 5X as much as Booby waiting(begging) to be NBA owners. You think the league isn't gonna use everything in their power to force his hand on this?

[spanishninja]

Sarver needs to go. Scumbag was using the "N" word? In a league with 90% black men? POS

Larry Ellison, come on down.

All of us need to be sending thank you tweets to ESPN/Baxter Holmes.

This. Is. Our. Moment.

not only that, one of his minority owners is a PROMINENT african-american sports legend.

[WeekapaugGroove]

The fact that this got leaked early was probably the best thing to happen to Sarver. He was able to get on defense and prepare for what’s about to drop.

I think it got leaked by someone at ESPN that’s on Sarver’s payroll. All these owners have some of their own guys in the big media companies.

Sarver would have known either way, any real journalist would always give the accused a chance to respond before running the article.


Sent from my SM-G986U using RealGM mobile app

[WeekapaugGroove]

Yup. And the ironic part is his ego and just general **** personality that got him into this mess will lead him to dig in his heels and fight this. And when it comes to ousting an owner there's a legal aspect and unless there's more proof than is being presented I'm not sure a court would actually make him sell.

Sent from my SM-G986U using RealGM mobile app

I'd say the fact that this story got white washed by his legal team is clear evidence that attempts at forcing him out would be met with retaliation. Without emails or recordings I doubt Sarver goes anywhere anyways. It will be interesting to see how the league, team, and even other players respond though.

Dude. You realize he used the N-word in front of his black coach multiple times in reference to another black player-a vocal HOFer at that?

They have guys worth 5X as much as Booby waiting(begging) to be NBA owners. You think the league isn't gonna use everything in their power to force his hand on this?

I hope the league tries. My concern is making him sell is a legal matter and if this goes to a court it's a lot of he said/she said and I just don't know if there's anything I read that would cause a court to force someone to sell.

Plus some of this is basically proof he's a **** person and sucks to work for but simply being an **** isn't illegal or basis to take you're team away.
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[Slim Charless]

I'll add that no one on the team is gonna be standing up for him. Aside form the few posters here who for some reason like defending him, Sarver has backers in PHX.

Look at what Monty/JJ said when this came out. Nothing but the most basic and vanilla defense possible. Neither of them stood up for they guy. That alone is damning.

[bwgood77]

Well, here we go

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Lets put these in a different thread this time so they don't get co-mingled with our discussion of the team, players and what we think of that stuff.

[Bogyo]

Still nothing firm on the Sarver story. In this day of age that means more smoke than fire. Also the strong response (wording, etc) from his team probably means that they have a lot of info about it and some (most of the big allegations) are false, or they can fight them easy. They will too, and he likely will not be forced to sell...

So what likely happened is that Bobby is just a giant gaping aaaahole (what we all know). He probably offended a lot of people during his tenure here, and some of those people were women, or asians/jews/LGBT/black/latino. Some of them felt that his insults and his actions towards them was some kind of racism, or phobia. By now enough of these stories have piled up that somebody tried to make it into something that its not (really, maaaybe a bit but you can't prove it as he is an arrogant jerk towards everybody, not just minorities). That's why ESPN is not airing the story - they probably never will, or it will just be a watered down something about how Bobby is not the nicest human being. We'll be stuck with him for longer, as the media boys have cried wolf one too many times.

About possible new owners: not sure I'd like either. Maybe Bezos if he just doesn't care about us enough, just dumps the cash on the franchise and let's the basketball people do their thing. I'd see more of a chance of that with him than Musk. I've seen somebody mention the Saudi, as they go all out in soccer nowadays... True, but the thing is that they only do that for diplomacy, they have been trying to get back on the right side of public eye since they slaughtered and butchered a reporter into pieces and moved his pieces in suitcases so they wouldn't get caught with the body... on the orders of their Sheik who might have been watching this whole thing live... not something I'd love my team to be associated with, even tho the money they shell out is crazy...

From page 14 of this thread... looks like I was right. Bobby is a gaping ahole, what we all know. I believe the stories (mostly, although Watson has no credibility in my eyes)... But these would likely not work in court or anyhing like that... too bad my beloved Suns became such a toxic work environment under a (kinda racist but you can't really prove it) boomer...

also, just in tiny letters: some of the stuff cited that happened 10 years ago were "kinda OK" at that time, but they wouldn't be now after the metoo and the BLM movements

[bwgood77]

Earl Watson being the primary source of this makes me believe this is just some BS story.

It's not. This is a well-vetted story with a ton of sources.

Look - Sarver sucks. Everyone knows it. We all know he's this guy. The stories have been around for years they're just finally bubbling up to the surface in a coherent format. If you've orbited the franchise in any fashion over the last 15 years you know that there is one person to blame for the Suns organization being what it is - Robert Sarver.

The NBA can keep running from this but Sarver is bad for the brand as a whole. Get him out.

There is too much for it all to be false. I don't put much stock in the Earl Watson stuff, though I know it's clear he told him to fire the Klutch guy.

Ultimately I don't like him as an owner and would love a replacement that would pay the tax and deep into it for a contender.

I do find it curious that near the very end of the story (of course), there is this:

Suns chief financial officer and general manager of the Phoenix Mercury Jim Pitman said, "[Sarver] has been consistently on the side of women and the WNBA." Executive director for Phoenix Suns charities and vice president of social responsibility Sarah Krahenbuhl said, "[Sarver's] not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but how he pushes us is for the greater good."

Lon Babby, Suns president of basketball operations from 2010 to 2015, said: "Robert is surely a demanding and, at times, difficult manager to work for. But I can tell you as assuredly that he is not in any way shape or form a racist or guilty of any kind of sexual harassment or mistreatment of women."

Golden State coach Steve Kerr helped introduce Sarver to former NBA commissioner David Stern before Sarver bought the Suns in 2004. After serving as a consultant, Kerr was named the team's general manager in 2007, a position he left in 2010. He hasn't worked with the Suns in any capacity since that time. Kerr was a minority owner of the team from 2004 to 2014 when he divested a less-than-1% stake to coach the Warriors.

Of their time together from 2004 to 2010, Kerr told ESPN: "I never saw anything that suggested racism or misogyny, and I was very surprised to hear those allegations because that's not the person that I know."