Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver was likely spared even stronger sanctioning by the NBA for his racist, misogynistic and hostile words and actions because of one key conclusion by investigators, commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday.
The law firm that spent nearly a year digging into the situation determined Sarver's use of slurs "was not motivated by racial animus." Had that not been the case, Silver indicated, Sarver's punishment — a one-year suspension and $10 million US fine — would have been far more severe.
And that, to Silver, is one of the key distinctions between the Sarver case and the one surrounding then-Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2014, when he was banned for life and fined $2.5 million for racist comments.
The NBA had the option of giving Sarver a longer ban than the one-year suspension. The $10 million fine was the maximum allowable, as was the case with Sterling's $2.5 million fine eight years ago; NBA rules on maximum fines were changed in 2019.