I hate Sarver just as much as the next guy and actually got excited when this first broke at the prospect of a new owner but after reading it I think it was way overhyped and not that bad. Now all the accusations are bad but there's somethings in the story that kinda make me question if all its true.
First the only major accusations made by someone not anonymous was Earl Watson. The worse thing he said Sarver did was use the N word, and nobody else was around to hear it. The other time he was accused of saying it he admitted he did.
Then there is this
A recruiting pitch was set for the start of free agency. Among Sarver and others, attendees included Nash's agent Bill Duffy and 2003 Rookie of the Year Amar'e Stoudemire, both of whom are Black. Three people in the room told ESPN that, during the meeting, Sarver made a comment they felt was racially insensitive; they could not recall specifics but said they felt he too loosely used the term "Black guy" during the conversation.
There is no context here to judge if he used "black guy" too many times besides some anonymous source saying he did. Both Amare and Nash had long careers with the Suns and Nash bought a soccer team with Sarver so how bad could it have been?
Watson said he explained to Sarver the optics of a white owner asking a Black coach to fire an agency led by a Black agent, Paul.
What are the optics? How is this a racial thing?
Sarver, according to two people who witnessed the interaction, asked Griffin whether he shaved his legs. Griffin said he did. Sarver then asked, "Do you shave your balls, too?" One basketball operations staffer said Sarver separately asked the question of others in the organization several years later.
When reached for comment, Griffin told ESPN, "At the time, I took it as a joke. Looking back on it in the context of today, for a leader of a company or the owner of a team to say such a thing is inappropriate."
Yea unprofessional and embarrassing for the owner of a billion dollar sports team but worth losing a team over?
AFTER A GAME in the 2018-19 season, Sarver fumed that rookie center Deandre Ayton -- the 2018 No. 1 pick -- had failed to record a block or a foul. Sarver slammed a stat sheet on the table in front of assistant coach Corliss Williamson, who had been working with Ayton. "In all my years, that's the first time I've ever seen an owner come in there and act like that with the coaching staff," Williamson said.
Williamson was a 6-foot-7, 245-pound former NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons whose NBA nickname was "The Big Nasty." Williamson, who grew up in Arkansas, said an older, white male owner aggressively confronting him -- a Black man from the South -- carried racial connotations for him.
"That's exactly where my mind went," Williamson told ESPN.
Just because a white boss confronted a black employee? Was anything said that made it seem about more than just performance?
Then there's this
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."
With such widespread and systematic racism, misogyny, abuse, etc but not a single complaint in the 17 years he's owned the team?
Sarver is a crappy person/boss and a lot of this is probably true but it's a lot of he said/she said and it isn't nearly as damming as it was hyped to be. They also added somethings that I don't think were that big of a deal like the Williamson confrontation which took away from the severity of the article. Makes me think they were just intentionally trying to add as many things as possible to make it sound worse.
