NBA takes it too easy on Sarver, shouldn’t to prevent this from happening again

In 2004, Suns owner Robert Sarver used the N-word during a meeting to recruit a free agent player. In 2021, Sarver talked about learning what a “blow job” was during a Suns’ business meeting.

For the 17 years in between, Sarver was often a bully, the man who oversaw a Suns organization with racist and misogynistic overtones that flowed directly from the top. All of that and more is detailed in a 36-page report flowing out of an NBA investigation into the franchise by the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

The report found more than 100 employees who said Sarver “violated applicable standards” of business conduct, but that legalese sells short what employees were dealing with. For example, he “told a pregnant employee that she would be unable to do her job upon becoming a mother,” he “made a comment to a female employee about his genitalia” (that happened more than once), he emailed pornographic material to some other male colleagues, Sarver used the N-word at least five times (despite being told multiple times by staff that was not acceptable), he swore often, and “over 50 current and former employees reported that Sarver frequently engaged in demeaning and harsh treatment of employees.”

All that is just the tip of a very disturbing iceberg in the report. Nearly every detailed incident was something that would get nearly everybody reading this fired on the spot.

Yet Sarver will still be the owner, be working out of the offices of the Phoenix Suns a year from now and sitting courtside at their 2023-24 games.

Sarver was suspended by the NBA for a year for creating a hostile work environment, and he was fined $10 million — with that money being directed to organizations focused on racial and gender-based issues in