NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke to reporters Wednesday after it was announced Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver will be suspended one year following a league investigation into workplace misconduct. He will also face a $10 million fine.
“I was in disbelief to a certain extent about what I learned that had transpired over the last 18 years in the Suns organization,” Silver said.
The investigation found that Sarver said the n-word at least five times during his 18-year ownership tenure in Phoenix. Per the NBA investigation, Sarver consistently acted inappropriately toward employees, including numerous “sex-related comments toward female employees.” Sarver also made “inappropriate comments about the physical appearance” of both women who worked for the team and elsewhere, and he also reportedly engaged in “inappropriate physical conduct toward male employees.”
In November 2021, ESPN reported accounts from more than 70 current and former Suns employees who detailed a toxic workplace environment under Sarver that included both racism and misogyny. This included detailed instances of when Sarver said the n-word, including when he said he hired Lindsey Hunter as head coach in ’13 over Dan Majerle because “these [n-words] need a [n-word].” The NBA opened its investigation soon after that report was published.
Despite the findings, the league determined that none of Sarver’s behavior was “motivated by racial or gender-based animus.”
Sports Illustrated’s Howard Beck asked Silver why there was a different standard for Sarver over regular employees, since it’s most likely any typical employee would have been fired for conducting themselves in a way similar to Sarver.
“I don’t have the right to take away his team,” Silver said. “I don’t want to rest on that legal point because, of course, there could be a process to take away someone’s team in this league it’s very involved and I ultimately made the decision that it didn’t rise to that level.”
Silver also compared Sarver to former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who was forced to sell the team after a tape of him making racist remarks toward Black people surfaced in 2014. Silver said the two cases are notably different.
Silver said Sterling was guilty of “blatant racist conduct directed at a select group of people while Sarver’s comments were “beyond the pale” but “wholly a different kind” than Sterling’s,” per The Washington Post’s Ben Golliver. He added that there was no conversation about forcing Sarver to sell the team and added he “has evolved as a person” and has done “many positive things” in his role.
