Speaker 1: Guess what, Phoenix Suns fans, If you thought that the
Speaker 1: Robert Sarver drama and him getting kicked to the curb
Speaker 1: was the end of all of the off court toxicity,
Speaker 1: guess again, Because when Baxter Holmes, the guy who writes
Speaker 1: four articles a year, comes sniffing around your organization, shit's
Speaker 1: about to go left. And Baxter Holmes put out another
Speaker 1: bombshell piece on the Phoenix Suns to day, and you
Speaker 1: know what, It's not good. It is damning. According to
Speaker 1: the NBA's own investigation of Robert Sarver, many current and
Speaker 1: former executives and employees told investigators that they believe Sarver's
Speaker 1: conduct had a trickle down effect, that he behaved poorly
Speaker 1: towards his direct reports, and those reports in turn found
Speaker 1: that they had felt that they had license to mistreat
Speaker 1: their own reports. The trickle down of toxicity it continues.
Speaker 1: Our investigation finds instances in which certain Sons executives yelled
Speaker 1: at and subjected their colleagues to embarrassment, humiliation, and intimidation
Speaker 1: in the workplace, including conduct that constitutes bullying under the
Speaker 1: Sun's workplace policy. Oh boy, not shockingly, a lot of
Speaker 1: this abusive behavior seems to be of seems to be
Speaker 1: leveled at women. Yeah. One female employee told the investigators quote,
Speaker 1: I remember when all this stuff came out about Robert
Speaker 1: and I thought, finally, but one. Are the others going
Speaker 1: to be held accountable to the main culprit appears to
Speaker 1: be high level executives, including CEO Jason Rowley, While Raleigh
Speaker 1: says more punishment will be coming for those who are
Speaker 1: responsible in this atmosphere of abuse. One former employee was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: you're gonna fire yourself or what like? Ause, it's you, my,
Speaker 1: it's you. And Rally is a guy mind you that.
Speaker 1: The report says he once berated a pregnant female executive
Speaker 1: who had the balls to question the reporting structure of
Speaker 1: the SUNS by just straight up screaming at her, Who
Speaker 1: the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck
Speaker 1: are you to question the reporting structure? If I tell
Speaker 1: you to report to someone, you fucking report to them.
Speaker 1: The ESPN article indicates that the woman was then iced out,
Speaker 1: hassled over her maternity leave, and then she was fired
Speaker 1: when she returned to work from said maternity leave. I
Speaker 1: think that's against the law. I'm pretty sure that's it's
Speaker 1: against some labor laws. It stated, quote, male team executives
Speaker 1: try to terminate the female employee while she was on leave,
Speaker 1: but the female's uh, the employee's female supervisor actually persuaded
Speaker 1: them to wait until the employee returned to work to
Speaker 1: then eliminate her physician. Who was this male executive that
Speaker 1: tried to get her fired and then later fired her, Yes,
Speaker 1: CEO Jason Rowley. This is nuts, Like the entire report
Speaker 1: is somehow, some way more damning than the actual stuff
Speaker 1: about Robert Sarver alone. Fucking executives were just blatantly harassing
Speaker 1: and bullying and intimidating employees pretty much everywhere, allowing sexual
Speaker 1: harassment from team sponsors, forcing multiple pregnant women and new
Speaker 1: moms to quit. They just hated pregnant women. I don't think,
Speaker 1: I mean, no one hated pregnant women more than the
Speaker 1: phoenix Suns brought for an office. They were like yo.
Speaker 1: It was so bad that the investigation concluded the Son's
Speaker 1: organization has been a difficult place for women to work,
Speaker 1: particularly if they have young children, and that Sons executives
Speaker 1: have on occasion treated female employees differently because of their
Speaker 1: gender and their pregnant and see what is the solution
Speaker 1: in Phoenix? I mean they got it all go everything,
Speaker 1: blow it all up, get them all gone, every single
Speaker 1: last one of them. Every high ranking executive who worked
Speaker 1: during the Sarva era has to retire. You have to go.
Speaker 1: No golden parachute for you, deuces for you, see you later,
Speaker 1: have a nice life, go away. You can't build a
Speaker 1: better organization. You can't buy the Phoenix Suns and have
Speaker 1: these fucking assholes still in the building doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: That is just like changing ownership. And so the shit
Speaker 1: cloud that has hung over the Suns all year has
Speaker 1: not gone away. It is only becoming apparent that it
Speaker 1: wasn't just one cloud. It was pretty much the entire sky.
Speaker 1: Let's play a little game. I am an NBA franchise.
Speaker 1: Who am I? I am currently the hottest team in
Speaker 1: the NBA right now at the moment, I've won seven
Speaker 1: games in a row. I have the second best record
Speaker 1: on the road in the entire NBA at ten and six.
Speaker 1: I'm playing currently at a six sixty six clip within
Speaker 1: my own conference. My star player has been completely maligned
Speaker 1: this year, but has been hot as fuck, averaging twenty
Speaker 1: one eleven and four. My young star, who they locked
Speaker 1: up to a big extension in the offseason, who has
Speaker 1: been terrible all year, is playing twenty two, six and
Speaker 1: two over the last seven games, somehow shaking off all
Speaker 1: of that dust and disrespect. My coach, who's been largely
Speaker 1: considered to be on the hot seat, now stands in
Speaker 1: fifth place. Who am I? Who am I? I am
Speaker 1: the New York fucking Knicks. If you can believe that,
Speaker 1: are you serious? No one's talking about the Knicks right now.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even believe these stats. I couldn't even belie
Speaker 1: believe that they were the hottest currently the hottest team
Speaker 1: in the NBA. From dead in the water at ten
Speaker 1: and thirteen, people saying Tibbs was gonna be fired, rising
Speaker 1: in the standings, being tied fifth with the Sixers. They
Speaker 1: are tied with the Sixers right now. Julius Randall from
Speaker 1: him chucking fifteen shots a game from six inches outside
Speaker 1: the three point line to being unstoppable j RJ. Barrett
Speaker 1: going from the worst contract of the offseason to a
Speaker 1: legit borderline All star player, the team currently playing really
Speaker 1: good defense. We have to do some sort of deep
Speaker 1: dive soon. Like a autopsy on the death of the
Speaker 1: New York Yet Nick stinking because only one question matters
Speaker 1: right now. Is this a fluke? Or are the Knicks
Speaker 1: for real? Was this a bad start or is this
Speaker 1: just a hot moment. We're gonna have to see. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to see a really quick look at what's
Speaker 1: happening in Chicago. Bad news Bulls, It's not good, bad
Speaker 1: news bulls. Currently, the Bulls sat at eleven and eighteen
Speaker 1: in the East. How bad is eleven and eighteen in
Speaker 1: the East? Well, they are. They are closer to twelfth place,
Speaker 1: where the Wizards sit having lost ten in a row,
Speaker 1: than they are being in the final play and spot
Speaker 1: that's bad? How how sway? How bad are things in Chicago?
Speaker 1: Following their fourth straight loss where they gave up one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty points to the Carl Anthony Towns less Timberwolves,
Speaker 1: Zach Lavine said this, it's frustrating for all of us.
Speaker 1: I know it's frustrating for the fans. It's embarrassing. We're
Speaker 1: all a little embarrassed about it. Gordon Dragich said, we're
Speaker 1: not playing for each other. De more durou don't put it.
Speaker 1: Probably more bluntly, we look like shit. You think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. You look horrible. Everything about this team is bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank god they have Lonzo Ball and he's
Speaker 1: just gonna be coming right around the block. Right. His
Speaker 1: returns eminent, right. No. No. The latest on Lonzo Ball
Speaker 1: also came out yesterday. Billy Donovan spoke to Lonzo and
Speaker 1: we now still have no timetable for his return. He
Speaker 1: is currently progressing towards running. My man, Lonzo Ball isn't
Speaker 1: even running, isn't even on a treadmill right now. When
Speaker 1: he does run, he now needs to be able to
Speaker 1: show that he can go after loose balls without pain.
Speaker 1: He needs a quote significant ramp up for conditioning after
Speaker 1: he gets cleared to run, and then he has to
Speaker 1: do that without pain. Let me just say this, if
Speaker 1: you think Lonzo Ball is coming back this year, he
Speaker 1: is not. This is like a Zion thing from last year,
Speaker 1: same thing. He's not coming back. I would not be
Speaker 1: surprised if he goes to Beaverton to go work with
Speaker 1: Nike for a little while, just see if he can
Speaker 1: figure some things out, do some so searching, take some ayahuasca,
Speaker 1: figure it all out. We'll do a full segment on
Speaker 1: the Bulls. Maybe soon, maybe not, but for now, shit
Speaker 1: has gone sideways. One thing is for sure, though, You
Speaker 1: think the Bulls regret signing Billy Donovan to a big extension,
Speaker 1: You mean the secret extension that they signed in the
Speaker 1: off season that nobody knew about until the season began. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some shit probably should remain secret. Figure out an outclause
Speaker 1: of that. Finally, let's end the episode with a little
Speaker 1: bit of Christmas cheer courtesy of Adam Silver In the NBA.
Speaker 1: For the first time ever, the NBA is going to
Speaker 1: take care of players who played in the old ABA,
Speaker 1: the American Basketball Association Association that the league merged with
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six. Ever since the merger of the NBA,
Speaker 1: it's pretty much done everything possible to keep from having
Speaker 1: to take any semblance of caretaking of ABA players who
Speaker 1: did not make it into the NBA. An entire organization
Speaker 1: is out there called Dropping Dimes, was formed actually to
Speaker 1: help struggling former players and vets, you know, lobby to
Speaker 1: the league to take financial stake in the welfare of
Speaker 1: former ABA players. Right. So, finally, after eight years, the
Speaker 1: league has decided to open its purse it's enormous purse,
Speaker 1: by the way, and cut off time those slice for
Speaker 1: a league that's pretty much saved the entirety of pro
Speaker 1: basketball in America to the tune of twenty five million dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's better than nothing, I guess, just in
Speaker 1: time for Christmas, this is unbelievably good news. I think
Speaker 1: for every ABA player whoever hooked on or never hooked
Speaker 1: on with an NBA team, some of many of whom
Speaker 1: actually are struggling to this very day. All these guys
Speaker 1: are in their seventies and eighties, one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: check probably going to be a nice little Christmas present
Speaker 1: for him. You might ask yourself, why did it take
Speaker 1: so long? Why did this take so long for the
Speaker 1: NBA to do the right thing? I don't know, but
Speaker 1: better late than never. Rite So much of what we
Speaker 1: love about the NBA came from the ABA. Fast breaks, tomahawk,
Speaker 1: hammer dunks, threes, flashy players, personality. So it's only fair
Speaker 1: that the players who sort of develop what we have
Speaker 1: now and what we love about the league now and
Speaker 1: didn't make it into the new NBA would at least
Speaker 1: benefit somewhat tiny bit from a league that just makes
Speaker 1: billions and billions and billions and dollars in part because
Speaker 1: of the merger that saved them. That's all the time
Speaker 1: that we have for the Heat Check. Check out the
Speaker 1: feed for past episodes and some of the many episodes
Speaker 1: that drop. Follow the Heat Check. As the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two twenty twenty three season is hot right now, it's
Speaker 1: fin full swing. Do not forget to download, Please subscribe,
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