Sarver ESPN story

[King4Day]

These are a few points I think will get him in trouble:

When the Suns were recruiting free agent LaMarcus Aldridge in the summer of 2015, the team knew that Aldridge had young children in Texas and that playing near them was appealing. During the recruitment, Sarver remarked to two basketball operations staffers that the Suns needed to have local strippers impregnated by NBA players so those players would have children in the Phoenix area and feel obliged to be closer to them, giving the Suns a potential edge in free agency, the now-former staffers said.

No doubt he was joking, but as an owner, it's not something you say. He is denying it but I don't doubt it was said.

One former Suns basketball operations staffer who interacted with Sarver regularly said he still deals with stress and anxiety from Sarver's verbal abuse and late-night phone calls -- to the point that the panic he felt still strikes anytime the phone rings late in the evenings. "I never felt comfortable there," the staffer said. "And I was there for a long time. ... I didn't even get fired. If that gives you any context -- I left on my own. There's no reason to be miserable every day anymore."

No doubt if someone left on their own, they would have no reason to say this if it's not true.
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Even with the team's recent success, one current staffer said the team's culture has continued to decay.

"Now when employees should be having fun and should be enjoying the success," the staffer said, "the culture is lower than it's ever been."

This is why we need him out. Paul probably isn't seeing it since he just got there and Sarver has to bend over backwards for him.


This is what I think will get him in the most trouble:

- He agreed to a lot of what was mentioned which likely means other stuff was real too
- He cleaned up some of the bad stuff suggesting he remembers the time but it didn't happen in the way it was described (in so many words)
- The biggest thing that will hurt him is the culture behind the scenes. Talking about so many people saying they report stuff to HR (or are afraid to) and get 'severance' packages in exchange for NDA.



It'll be tough to oust him but I do think this may be the end result. It won't be fast though. I actually wouldn't be surprised if the investigation doesn't conclude until after this season.

[Slim Charless]

Should also be noted that the league technically didn't make Sterling sell the team. They suspended him and then Sterlings wife took him to court and had him found incompetent and then sold the team herself.

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Sterling was banned for life by Adam

He did and I would love if Sarver got the same treatment but all I was saying is even with the ban they technically didn't make him sell. Had his wife not won in court and sold it then the league owners would have had to vote to remove him.

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....which they would've and which they will do again if Sarver pushes this.

A story like this doesn't come out w/o the billionaire owners knowing about it. This is a means to get rid of him. His fellow owners and the league are over him.

He's done.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Sterling was banned for life by Adam

He did and I would love if Sarver got the same treatment but all I was saying is even with the ban they technically didn't make him sell. Had his wife not won in court and sold it then the league owners would have had to vote to remove him.

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....which they would've and which they will do again if Sarver pushes this.

A story like this doesn't come out w/o the billionaire owners knowing about it. This is a means to get rid of him. His fellow owners and the league are over him.

He's done.

I hope you're right.

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[BobbieL]

He did and I would love if Sarver got the same treatment but all I was saying is even with the ban they technically didn't make him sell. Had his wife not won in court and sold it then the league owners would have had to vote to remove him.

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....which they would've and which they will do again if Sarver pushes this.

A story like this doesn't come out w/o the billionaire owners knowing about it. This is a means to get rid of him. His fellow owners and the league are over him.

He's done.

I hope you're right.

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I hope so. SArver should take a sabbatical - not attend games or represent the team. Granted, he still is owner so he still decides things

[Slim Charless]

He did and I would love if Sarver got the same treatment but all I was saying is even with the ban they technically didn't make him sell. Had his wife not won in court and sold it then the league owners would have had to vote to remove him.

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....which they would've and which they will do again if Sarver pushes this.

A story like this doesn't come out w/o the billionaire owners knowing about it. This is a means to get rid of him. His fellow owners and the league are over him.

He's done.

I hope you're right.

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I would think that it's gonna a combo of whoever that current guy is on the board, an actual big pocketed spender (Ellison hopefully) and maybe they let a former player in on it. I assume there's rules about current players getting involved or I would say CP3 is a candidate to pitch in-he's worth like 500 mill at this point probably.

[bwgood77]

Maybe a good solution if the league feels he should step down but doesn't feel like they have enough to remove him is that Sarver should sell enough of his stake to let that billionare take over as majority owner and managering partner. This would essentially make him the ultimate decision maker and Sarver could simply take a back seat and give his 2 cents in ownership meetings or whatever.

Obviously Sarver will fight this tooth and nail.

Honestly though, my gut tells me Crowley's statement about "Obviously Holmes decided the story he wanted to write and cherry picked information to back what he wanted to tell".

To go back to 2004 when none of this stuff has EVER come out seems a little absurd.

And plenty of other stuff came out like him firing an arena worker on the spot and yelling at people and the goat poop story, etc.

[Saberestar]

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[lilfishi22]

I find it a bit damning that some posters here are more ready to strike down these pretty serious and seemingly well corroborated allegations as a non-story because Watson and potentially McD (I don't believe he was named) were witnesses. Watson was a terrible coach, did very little for our winning culture and he probably shouldn't have been our coach in the first place but I don't really paint him as a liar or a guy with a bad intentions looking for the spotlight.

I'm sure quite a number of us here have worked for bad employers, some worse than others but if you think that the head of the organisation couldn't foster a toxic culture/environment where bad behaviour is exhibited in senior leadership and even down to the lower levels of management then I think you've had a VERY lucky career. I would say I've worked in businesses where other parts of the business have been toxic and were a real "boy's club" where things are said and not dealt with properly because they made the company a lot of money. I know that a culture driven purely by results and profits do often lead to some toxic habits and environments so it wouldn't surprise me if Sarver ran the Suns in such a fashion. Even if Sarver wasn't promoting or even acknowledged the toxic culture, he surely hadn't done much to address it over the years.

Before making my last point, I will say that it's entirely possible that members of staff and even large parts of the organisation may not have dealt with or witnessed these allegations first hand. So someone like Jones, Babby, Rex Chapman and Kerr for example may honestly not have come across it themselves so I don't doubt that they have nothing bad to say about Sarver. But just because senior and well known current/ex-staff could not confirm these allegations, doesn't mean Sarver is absolved of them or that they didn't happen. For me, the most interesting thing is that the NBA has not received a single complaint from the Suns organisation.

NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said the league has not "received a complaint of misconduct at the Suns organization through any of our processes, including our confidential workplace misconduct hotline or other correspondence."

NBPA executive director Michele Roberts said she was not aware of any reports from players of misconduct by Sarver or the Suns. "Apart from [point guard Chris Paul] and James Jones, we have not had much official contact with the team and none that I can think of with Sarver."

But I will contextualise by saying I don't know how often those confidential workplace misconduct hotlines are used in reality. I feel like more often than not, if there is a real serious workplace issue that an employee doesn't feel like HR can handle, they are more likely to get external legal advice and go through that legal process and handled privately which was alluded to in the article.

Overall to me this story certainly leans a bit further than plausible given what we know about Sarver from many different people over the years. While I won't profess to know what is or isn't enough to oust an owner, I will say that these allegations at the very least should be rightfully investigated by an independent third party which the NBA seems to have begun the process of.

[bigfoot]

Is this really a story about Cultural Norms???

If everyone steps back and takes an honest look at this situation we need to recognize what was acceptable yesterday and suddenly deemed unacceptable takes time to fix. An example, in Arizona, is the hiking mountain Piestewa Peak which was previously known as Squaw Peak. Many found it offensive but it took years to change the name. Same with the Washington Football team and more recently the Tomahawk Chop. In all cases, it's offensive but the changes take so much education and time.

I find it interesting that Sarver saying why do women always cry is an indication of misogyny. I've personally been on the receiving end of this treatment. I can also say there are serial criers who have used this tactic to achieve their agenda. I've even seen it done in large group settings. Is it culturally acceptable for women to cry in stressful situations or when they receive criticism?? Or should it be unacceptable for all women because some women use it to further their careers. In our "woke" society, these are questions that need to be examined.

I would argue the same for locker room banter. Sarver's comment to Griffin about shaving his nads fits that criteria. I have little doubt the current Suns' players and Mercury players engage in this type of banter on a regular basis. It is a cultural norm engrained since their formative years in middle school and high school. Any jock can tell a ridiculous number of stories from high school and/or college, probably funny to many people, that many would find offensive. Should it be squashed or not?

Another example is the prevalent use of N***a in black culture. A term of endearment??? Certainly unusable by white culture and for those who have tried called out for cultural appropriation. I can certainly see that Sarver could view it as offensive and ask why Draymond can repeatedly use it during a game all the while young kids are sitting in the front rows hearing it. How many years before society becomes woke and deems this choice of word as scandalous.

Sarver certainly says and does things that many including myself find offensive. I'd never put goats in somebody's office but I've loaded their car with packing peanuts and superglued their phone cord to their desk. Where do office antics and comradery cross the line? Where do office romances fit in today's culture? Tinder and Match.com didn't exist when Sarver was growing up. In the past, it was pretty normal for coworkers to banter sexually, date and get married. Now it's a big no-no. His culture and that of many boomers are different and it takes time to change and adapt.

Probably the thing I find most offensive is Sarver drawing up plays and trying to inject his limited basketball knowledge into the coaching staff and players. That and playing pretend-GM. He's put a negative imprint on the team with this type of meddling. Still, Jerry Colangelo was at times the owner, general manager, and coach for the Suns during his tenure.

My guess is unless they can truly find a smoking gun on audio or video, Bobby is here to stay.

[garrick]

I don't think the players would be affected by this story all that much since the allegations are coming from former staffers and coaches and the players wouldn't experience the same treatment as a low level staffer.

The Suns front office seems like it has been quite toxic for quite some time but this isn't a good enough reason to have the league sell the team, certainly changes in the organization will be made so that Sarver conducts himself more professionally but nothing in the article paints him as a raging racist that hates people of color.

This won't force him to sell the team but he will have to take a good hard look a the way he conducts himself around the team and that the times have changed & he can't act like Michael J Scott anymore.

[Saberestar]

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[lilfishi22]

"These [N-words] need a [N-word]," Sarver told the staffer of his largely Black team, according to the executive.

Was there a time in the last 17 years when this was ok to say in a professional setting? I personally find a lot wrong with woke and cancel culture when used as a weapon in the wrong or undeserving context but are we really defending this?

[WeekapaugGroove]

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This is interesting, I assumed he owned a higher percentage. Im not exactly sure how this works with these ownership groups but I wonder if the other 65% can remove him.

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[WeekapaugGroove]

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If he's going to make a statement I would think he should probably say if he ever witnessed any of the reported behavior. I'll give Watson credit for putting his name on his claims. And if Ryan hadn't witnessed any that obviously doesn't mean it didn't happen.

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[lilfishi22]

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This is interesting, I assumed he owned a higher percentage. Im not exactly sure how this works with these ownership groups but I wonder if the other 65% can remove him.

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They've looked into it

Within the first decade of Sarver's tenure, a few members of the approximately 20-person ownership group explored having Sarver removed, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. The operating agreement that sealed Sarver's position as the team's "governor" was quietly reviewed by outside legal counsel. But outside counsel soon relayed that Sarver's contract effectively prevented him from being removed absent serious criminal behavior or similarly egregious conduct.

[matt131]

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This is interesting, I assumed he owned a higher percentage. Im not exactly sure how this works with these ownership groups but I wonder if the other 65% can remove him.

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Couldn't that billionaire just buy out the remaining minority owners, end up with 65% of the team, and then by default be the majority owner?

[RaisingArizona]

Peace out Sarver

[RaisingArizona]

I'm curious, of all the different things in the ESPN report about Sarver, what do people think is the single most egregious item.

Driving employees to psychologists and suicide stuck out to me.

[bigfoot]

I'm curious, of all the different things in the ESPN report about Sarver, what do people think is the single most egregious item.

Driving employees to psychologists and suicide stuck out to me.

Yeah, I would agree that is a concern.

However, it can be guaranteed that every organization has that issue. Don't fool ourselves into thinking there are only problems with the Suns. There are people who have mental illnesses and/or suicidal tendencies in everyone's workplace. Self-care through psychologists or social workers is likely more prevalent than you think. Just not spoken about.

To me, if a job impacts your health and well-being you should immediately seek out other jobs. I wouldn't stick around hoping for change. It's hard to get the people at the top to recognize the need for change let alone to make sweeping changes.

[Slim Charless]

I'm curious, of all the different things in the ESPN report about Sarver, what do people think is the single most egregious item.

Driving employees to psychologists and suicide stuck out to me.

Yeah, I would agree that is a concern.

However, it can be guaranteed that every organization has that issue. Don't fool ourselves into thinking there are only problems with the Suns. There are people who have mental illnesses and/or suicidal tendencies in everyone's workplace. Self-care through psychologists or social workers is likely more prevalent than you think. Just not spoken about.

To me, if a job impacts your health and well-being you should immediately seek out other jobs. I wouldn't stick around hoping for change. It's hard to get the people at the top to recognize the need for change let alone to make sweeping changes.

Cool so go talk about those issues on those forums. Maybe instead of saying things like "if your job is terrible and causing you and others problems, then quit" you know, as opposed to forcing the offending managers/bosses to be forced to deal with that.

Unbelievable. You're essentially saying that he has a right to do whatever and say whatever he wants.

You want to know how to make change? Force the issue by bringing the ugliness to light and hitting the offenders in their pocket books.... you know, kind of like making a national story out of something your reprehensible owner did.