Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver seeking buyers for NBA and WNBA teams after hostile work environment investigation

By Homero De la Fuente, CNN

Updated 0245 GMT (1045 HKT) September 22, 2022

The NBA had fined Phoenix Suns and Mercury managing partner Robert Sarver $10 million and suspended him for a year.

(CNN)Embattled basketball team owner Robert Sarver, suspended after a recent independent investigation found he engaged in hostile, racially insensitive and inappropriate behavior, announced Wednesday he will sell the NBA's Phoenix Suns and the WNBA's Mercury.

The NBA last week suspended Sarver for a year and fined him $10 million as a result of the investigation. «Words that I deeply regret now overshadow nearly two decades of building organizations that brought people together — and strengthened the Phoenix area — through the unifying power of professional men's and women's basketball,» Sarver, the managing partner of both teams, said in a statement.'Our league definitely got this wrong': LeBron James and other NBA figures respond to Robert Sarver decisionSarver had hoped the suspension would «provide the time for me to focus, make amends and remove my personal controversy,» the statement went on. «But in our current unforgiving climate, it has become painfully clear that that is no longer possible — that whatever good I have done, or could still do, is outweighed by things I have said in the past,» he said. «For those reasons, I am beginning the process of seeking buyers for the Suns and Mercury.»Read MoreNBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he fully supported the decision.«This is the right next step for the organization and community,» the commissioner said.A report detailing the investigation, commissioned by the NBA last fall after an ESPN report about Sarver's alleged behavior, found he had «on at least five occasions during his