Speaker 1: On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, the NBA suspended
Speaker 1: Sons and Mercury owner Robert Sarver for one year and
Speaker 1: finds him ten million dollars for workplace misconduct that included
Speaker 1: racially insensitive language and unequal treatment of women. SI staffer
Speaker 1: Rohan nod Kearney joins me to discuss the investigation of Sarver,
Speaker 1: his punishment, and where the NBA goes from here. I'm
Speaker 1: your host John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner
Speaker 1: Robert Sarver has been suspended for one year and finds
Speaker 1: ten million dollars following an investigation into Sarver after an
Speaker 1: ESPN report uncovered a history of racist and sexist comments.
Speaker 1: He was disrespectful to his organization, He was disrespectful to women,
Speaker 1: He was disrespectful to African American's well in the full story.
Speaker 1: The full picture that is painted in this report is
Speaker 1: certainly damning. Rohan, Welcome back to Sports Illustrated Weekly. Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me back on, John, It's been you know,
Speaker 1: I wish we could be back on the show together.
Speaker 1: In more auspicious circumstances. I feel like I invite you
Speaker 1: on my podcast all the time, and yet I think
Speaker 1: this is my second SI Weekly Parents your triumphant return.
Speaker 1: We do hear you on Open Floor. I pop on
Speaker 1: their periodically this topic. I'm sure that we'll be discussing
Speaker 1: on the Friday episode of Open Floor. But news broke
Speaker 1: this week that the NBA had suspended Sons and Mercury
Speaker 1: owner Robert Sarver for one year and find him ten
Speaker 1: million dollars. This is after a month's long independent review.
Speaker 1: They spoke with three twenty people Rohan, more than eighty
Speaker 1: thousand documents were reviewed. They went back eighteen years and
Speaker 1: found that Starver quote engaged in conduct that clearly violated
Speaker 1: common workplace standards as reflected in team and league rules
Speaker 1: and policies. This conduct included the use of racially insensitive
Speaker 1: language on eque, treatment of female employees, sex related statements
Speaker 1: and conduct, and harsh treatment of employees that on occasion
Speaker 1: constituted bullying. In addition to the suspension and fine, Starvin
Speaker 1: must now complete a training program focused on respect and
Speaker 1: appropriate work place conduct. I think that's probably too little,
Speaker 1: too late there. What's your reaction before we get into
Speaker 1: the specifics of what he's alleged to do about the
Speaker 1: terms of his punishment. I mean, I think, like everybody else,
Speaker 1: I'm just completely shocked the NBA drop the baldness. It's
Speaker 1: completely insignificant. The idea that he can sit there, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: be suspended, continue to make profits off the suns of
Speaker 1: this season. It's a joke, really, John, I'm when we
Speaker 1: first had an inkling that the news was coming, the
Speaker 1: length of the investigation led me to believe that they
Speaker 1: were being really thorough in the event that they needed
Speaker 1: to ban him. They needed to have all the evidence
Speaker 1: at their disposal, and it seems like they have plenty
Speaker 1: of smoking guns here. I think the NBAS punishment was
Speaker 1: a joke. I think their statement was a joke. I
Speaker 1: know we're gonna get into the incident specifically here, but
Speaker 1: in this statement alone, it says we don't believe these
Speaker 1: statements were racially motivated something along those lines. It's just pathetic.
Speaker 1: I don't know how the NBA drew the conclusions they
Speaker 1: drew from the investigation that they conduct. Here's just a
Speaker 1: partial list of stuff that he said or did around
Speaker 1: women and even male employees told a pregnant woman, Hey,
Speaker 1: you can't really have the same kind of career you're
Speaker 1: gonna have because you know your child needs a mother.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to take you off this event. Talked
Speaker 1: about sex acts, talked about condoms, talked about the size
Speaker 1: of his own penis, made comments about the physical appearance
Speaker 1: of female staffers, including the son's dancers, dropped his pants
Speaker 1: and his underwear while a physical trainer was performing a
Speaker 1: fitness examination on him, and the report concluded that he
Speaker 1: did none of that out of racial or gender based animus.
Speaker 1: I'm really shocked by this too, because they have a
Speaker 1: preponderance of evidence and then they land on a one
Speaker 1: year suspension and a ten million dollar fine, which obviously inequitable.
Speaker 1: Among the key findings, on at least five occasions, Sarver
Speaker 1: used the N word. Sarver engaged in instances of inequitable
Speaker 1: conduct towards female employees, made many sexualated comments in the workplace,
Speaker 1: and made inappropriate comments about the physical appearance of female
Speaker 1: employees and other women. On several occasions, he engaged in
Speaker 1: inappropriate physical conduct toward male employees, and he engaged in
Speaker 1: demeaning and harsh treatment of employees included by yelling and
Speaker 1: cursing at them. That's a lot. And then somehow they
Speaker 1: land on a one year suspension and like you know,
Speaker 1: the NBA fancies itself, Rohan, is this really progressive institution
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be tolerant, at least relative to other
Speaker 1: sports entities, and yet when it comes to meeting out
Speaker 1: punishment or standing up to ownership specifically, it fails consistently.
Speaker 1: And this is a really gross violation of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's so stark too, because part of the
Speaker 1: reason that Adam Silver gained let's call it notoriety or
Speaker 1: favor were among sports fans was when he came in
Speaker 1: how he handled the Donald Sterling situation. And this feels
Speaker 1: like the exact opposite of that. That's really kind of
Speaker 1: the elephant in the room is what what has changed
Speaker 1: or what has made this different than the Donald Sterling situation.
Speaker 1: And I think that is something that's going to be
Speaker 1: reported on and discussed in the coming months because it
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any sense. I when you hit the
Speaker 1: nail on the head, that was very early in his
Speaker 1: tenure as commissioner. That was if you think about it
Speaker 1: before we've really had a cultural moment that involved consequences
Speaker 1: for people, right. I mean, you know, I remember after
Speaker 1: the George Floyd murder where it seemed like corporations were
Speaker 1: being held to some kind of different standard and it
Speaker 1: being people were feeling forced to change a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it was all very awkward and clunky and uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and kind of revealing of how these things are not
Speaker 1: really about doing what's right. It's about kind of following
Speaker 1: the money, your public pressure, etcetera. Adam Silver was ahead
Speaker 1: of all that with Donald Sterling effective immediately, I am
Speaker 1: banning Mr Sterling for life from any association with the
Speaker 1: Clippers organization or the NBA. And now it just feels
Speaker 1: like we're kind of reverting back to an even worse time,
Speaker 1: even the fact that he could only get a one
Speaker 1: year suspension and attendingly all fine. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's some kind of legal analysis that needs to be
Speaker 1: done here and there's something that's protecting Robert Sarver, or
Speaker 1: maybe he even knows something that's protecting him, But it's
Speaker 1: it's very strange in kind of this time where it
Speaker 1: people are at least pretending to have a heightened sensitivity,
Speaker 1: whether they have it or not, that the NBA is
Speaker 1: whiffing so hard here. If you think about it, John,
Speaker 1: Let's say this news came out about Adam Silver. Let's
Speaker 1: say we found out hypothetically, of course Adam Silver used
Speaker 1: the N word five times, Adam Silver's emailing porn to people, etcetera.
Speaker 1: There is not a chance that Adam Silver keeps his
Speaker 1: job in that situation. It's not a chance anybody any
Speaker 1: other level of the NBA keeps their job if they're
Speaker 1: doing the things that the NBA found out Robert Sarver
Speaker 1: was doing. So the fact that he's able to continue
Speaker 1: to own the team, it just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. And you hit on something there earlier about
Speaker 1: consequences and how it felt like we had reached a point,
Speaker 1: especially with Donald Sterling, where there would be consequences for
Speaker 1: actions that were this agreed, just especially for privileged, white
Speaker 1: rich men who previously didn't have to face those consequences,
Speaker 1: and now it feels like we're going in the other direction.
Speaker 1: I want to get into some of these specifics here
Speaker 1: because they are really over the top. Hundred individuals Rohan
Speaker 1: one hundred witness, Sarver statements or actions that were deemed inappropriate.
Speaker 1: Of the five times Sarver repeatedly used the N word,
Speaker 1: four came after he was told by black and white
Speaker 1: employees to stop doing it and that he shouldn't do
Speaker 1: it even when he's just repeating somebody. He told a
Speaker 1: female employee that women cry too much. Twelve witnesses recall
Speaker 1: Sarver making a reference at an all employee meeting to
Speaker 1: a specific sex act. Nineteen witnesses recall him talking about
Speaker 1: a specific type of condom. There's even more graphics stuff
Speaker 1: about him walking into a room naked and telling a
Speaker 1: male and a female employee who were in the room
Speaker 1: at the time, that the woman should leave the room
Speaker 1: because she had never seen anything like that before, and
Speaker 1: on and on and on. Donald Sterling was rightly pushed
Speaker 1: out for things that were not dissimilar to this. Now
Speaker 1: there was a tape, so maybe that went a certain
Speaker 1: distance towards pushing him out. But it absolutely floors me
Speaker 1: that Robert Sarver, ostensibly, unless they decided to push him
Speaker 1: out during this one year's suspension, will be able to
Speaker 1: return to business as usual in one year's time. And
Speaker 1: let's not forget that he presided over a culture of
Speaker 1: this stuff going back eighteen years. This investigation found that
Speaker 1: other misconduct, racial insensitivity, in mistreatment of female employees, and
Speaker 1: appropriate comments on sex or sexual orientation spanned almost two decades,
Speaker 1: and for that two decades of conduct, he gets one
Speaker 1: year off. I don't understand how that makes any sense
Speaker 1: to anyone anywhere. It's really really baffling. You know, I
Speaker 1: wish I had pulled it up before we record it,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure, I promise you the songs again. There
Speaker 1: was that era, and I know it's kind of a
Speaker 1: an uncomfortable flashpoint to bring up, but there was that time,
Speaker 1: and there was no NBA going on. It was before
Speaker 1: the bubble. You know, there's protests in the street every
Speaker 1: day or every single NBA team, I think literally every
Speaker 1: single one except the Knicks, who maybe did it last.
Speaker 1: Every single NBA team released a statement, Oh, we condemn
Speaker 1: racism and all its forms, we stand against racism, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And now you're just seeing how empty all
Speaker 1: those things are. And I think the NBA has to
Speaker 1: accept that whatever gestures they make are going to feel
Speaker 1: empty now. You know, whatever gestures they make, corporate decisions
Speaker 1: that they make that say, Hey, you know, we really
Speaker 1: want women involved in our game. You know, the NBA
Speaker 1: really wants a woman to be a head coach of
Speaker 1: an NBA team. What woman would ever be the head
Speaker 1: coach of the Phoenix Suns listening to some of these
Speaker 1: comments robertsrver would make, Again, it's a weird situation. They're
Speaker 1: one of the few teams that has a black GM
Speaker 1: and a black coach. But how do they feel seeing
Speaker 1: these statements throwing Roberts Harbor is saying things like this
Speaker 1: all the time. I do think there's a degree that, Frankly,
Speaker 1: I think people in and around the league, in and
Speaker 1: around society are used to people of Robert Harber's stature
Speaker 1: acting this way and getting away with it. I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the problem here is we've kind of
Speaker 1: created an environment where people with that much money can
Speaker 1: live without consequences. But this was an opportunity for the
Speaker 1: NBA to begin to change that paradigm even a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's quite clear that the hypocrisy has been
Speaker 1: laid bare, not just in this instance but previously. At
Speaker 1: my last job, I did a story where I dug
Speaker 1: through FBC records over five years to look at the
Speaker 1: political donations of NBA owners, and this was during the
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter protests, the George Floyd murder protests, and
Speaker 1: you have Black Lives Matter on the court, and you have,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, all teams issuing statements and saying that
Speaker 1: they want to stop Hay and they stand with the players,
Speaker 1: but they have repeatedly shown through their actions that they
Speaker 1: do not. Because you can say, oh, we stand with
Speaker 1: the players, and we want policing reform, and we want
Speaker 1: social justice and we want racial equality, but you have
Speaker 1: say owners, the predominant number of owners in the NBA
Speaker 1: donating to a Republican Party, heavy amounts of money that
Speaker 1: enforce or put into place policies that are in direct
Speaker 1: conflict with what they're saying. For example, the Orlando Magic
Speaker 1: issued a statement as well after George Floyd, and then
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks later, the DeVos family donated two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars to the Republican Party and Trump, which
Speaker 1: is a group that was directly fighting the George Floyd
Speaker 1: Justice and Policing Act that was put forth by Karen
Speaker 1: Bass that got stalled in the Senate. So you can say, oh,
Speaker 1: we want to stop. Hey, we've got Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: on the court, but the actual policies that your support
Speaker 1: are in direct contrast and conflict with what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So the lip service is really ridiculous here, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing it again. I want to bring up the money
Speaker 1: component here because I think it's important. The NBA says
Speaker 1: it will donate his fine two organizations that are dedicated
Speaker 1: to addressing race and gender based issues in and out
Speaker 1: of the workplace. Here again, pretty gross lip service because
Speaker 1: that's the maximum amount permitted by the NBA constitution and
Speaker 1: by laws. And it sounds like a lot, right, except
Speaker 1: the team is worth one point eight billion. Various reports
Speaker 1: peg Starver's net worth at eight hundred million. This season alone,
Speaker 1: Jay Crowder, Michail Bridges, Chris Paul, DeAndre Ayton, and Devin
Speaker 1: Booker will all make more than ten million dollars, and
Speaker 1: Landry Shammitt and Dario Sarich will make almost ten million dollars.
Speaker 1: My whole point here is that Starver can afford this right,
Speaker 1: This doesn't hurt him in any meaningful way. Sitting out
Speaker 1: a year does not hurt him in any meaningful way.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, according to woj and Baxter
Speaker 1: Homes of ESPN and Starver may have cooperated with the investigation,
Speaker 1: but he was quote unaccepting of the idea that he
Speaker 1: deserved a one year suspension and a ten million dollar fine.
Speaker 1: So not only are these punishments insufficient, not only are
Speaker 1: these punishments not painful to him in any meaningful way.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like it's registered at all. He doesn't
Speaker 1: think that he deserved any of this. He's long been
Speaker 1: known as kind of one of the worst owners in
Speaker 1: the league. I mean, that's just do in large parts
Speaker 1: of the way he's doing his team, which has often
Speaker 1: been cheap. Of course, there was the famous Kevin Arnovit's
Speaker 1: story that he wants, let I think, let a goat
Speaker 1: defecate in his general manager's office. Just clearly out of
Speaker 1: touch with reality. I know multiple former Phoenix Suns players.
Speaker 1: None of this surprised any of them. When the story
Speaker 1: came out from back to around, it was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds about right. They didn't get everything in the report,
Speaker 1: They just got what people were willing to tell them,
Speaker 1: because I know that there were so much more. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the NBA is not who he should be looking to
Speaker 1: ultimately to saw all these kind of great, bigger societal issues.
Speaker 1: I think that they bear some responsibility, especially because they've
Speaker 1: kind of thrown themselves into this public arena and try
Speaker 1: to position themselves as a league that is kind of
Speaker 1: on the forefront of these issues that cares about things
Speaker 1: like social justice, racial inequality, etcetera. But that just makes
Speaker 1: it all the more shocking to me that you know,
Speaker 1: you talk to me when they say, well, couldn't you
Speaker 1: find out stuff like this about any owner or any
Speaker 1: of these workplaces? Some kind of utopia? Maybe not, But
Speaker 1: when you're kind of given a softball like this one,
Speaker 1: like a meatball right over the heart of the plate,
Speaker 1: given all this evidence, so many past workers willing to
Speaker 1: speak out, you're just giving such an easy opportunity to
Speaker 1: get rid of the guy that it sounds silly, but
Speaker 1: it really does make you almost want to put your
Speaker 1: conspiracy hat on, like what's going on here that they
Speaker 1: can't get rid of this guy when they have all
Speaker 1: this evidence that he's a terrible person. And I can't
Speaker 1: stress enough that if any other person at any other
Speaker 1: level of the NBA is done half the things Robert
Speaker 1: Sarver's accused. If there's no way they're keeping their job
Speaker 1: and holding your owners to above consequence, I think is
Speaker 1: a terrible precedent to set. Yeah. Not surprisingly, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: ESPN reported that the punitive part of the process became
Speaker 1: largely acrimonious, with the Sarver pushing back. Quite clearly, when
Speaker 1: you're an NBA owner, unless you're Donald Sterling, you know
Speaker 1: you can get away with a lot of these things.
Speaker 1: Although I wonder where do you think this ends up?
Speaker 1: Because Al Sharpton and various organizations weighed in on this
Speaker 1: and we're really up in arms about this being insufficient.
Speaker 1: Do you think over the next year that behind the
Speaker 1: scenes they are pushing him to sell or do you
Speaker 1: anticipate that any year's time, Robert Sarver, despite having done
Speaker 1: all of this that we outlined over the last almost
Speaker 1: two decades, this isn't just like limited isolated behavior, but
Speaker 1: a pattern over two decades. Do you think we'll see
Speaker 1: him back in the NBA. I don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of faith that he's going to be pushed out, only
Speaker 1: because as you mentioned one, he's really stubborn. He he
Speaker 1: didn't want to accept this punishment. He didn't want to
Speaker 1: accept the fine. I'm sure he would welcome a legal
Speaker 1: fight at this point. Also the fact that again they
Speaker 1: had all this evidence didn't try to kick him out
Speaker 1: right away. I do think there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of public pressure, and I don't think that this is
Speaker 1: going to go away. You know, whenever Adam Silver's next
Speaker 1: media availabilities, for example, he's going to be asked a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about this. I think everybody in this
Speaker 1: room would agree that if any of us had said
Speaker 1: or done even a small percentage of the things that
Speaker 1: Robert Sarver has been shown to have said and done,
Speaker 1: we would be fired. Why should there be a different
Speaker 1: standard for the owner of an NBA team than there
Speaker 1: would be for everybody who works in this league? Fair question.
Speaker 1: I'd only say there are particular rights here of someone
Speaker 1: who owns an NBA team as to some as opposed
Speaker 1: to somebody who's an employee. I don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of faith that he's going to be pushed out, but
Speaker 1: I do think that the public pressure will consider it amount.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have former Sons employees tweeting about how
Speaker 1: upset they were and how long the process was the
Speaker 1: NBA made them relive all these traumas dragged them through
Speaker 1: all these interviews. I mean, this investigation took many, many months.
Speaker 1: I think those people aren't going to just remain quiet
Speaker 1: now and kind of wipe their hands in and say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he's been suspended for only one year. So I do
Speaker 1: think there'll be hopefully more stories, hopefully more public pressure,
Speaker 1: because I don't think the NBA should just be able
Speaker 1: to kind of wipe their hands clean of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I don't. I don't think they'll be able to.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, this is a topic that is not
Speaker 1: going away. A lot of people like us will be
Speaker 1: asking the NBA and Adam Silver about this certainly over
Speaker 1: the next year. Uh. Listen to him on Open Floor,
Speaker 1: read him on SI dot com. Rohan Canny, thank you
Speaker 1: for this any time, John. Sports Illustrated Weekly is a
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Speaker 1: visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly
Speaker 1: was produced by Jordan Rozsieri, Jessica Armoski and Isaac Lee,
Speaker 1: who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producers are
Speaker 1: Dan Bloom and Harry sward Out. Our executive producers are
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