Is the NBA’s Punishment of Robert Sarver Harsh Enough?

The Suns and Mercury owner has been suspended for one year. But what happens when he comes back?

Robert Sarver is a jerk, a horrible boss and a sexist, and calling him racially insensitive is underselling it. When a white man uses the n-word in a workplace in any context, is told that it’s hurtful in any context, and does it again, anyway, as the NBA says Sarver did … well, the word for that is racist. I don’t care that the NBA’s report says there was “no finding that Mr. Sarver’s workplace misconduct was motivated by racial or gender animus.” When you behave as the report says Sarver behaved, his motivation is not the point. What matters is how it makes other people feel.

Is it frustrating that a man like this gets to own an NBA team? Absolutely. Should that piss you off? Sure! Is it NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s job to kick him out of the league? Well …

I am not saying Silver’s punishment of Sarver—a one-year ban from owning the Suns and WNBA’s Mercury and $10 million fine—was enough. Everybody can have an opinion on that. But put yourself in Silver’s situation, and ask yourself how you would have dealt with this.

If your name is Roger Goodell, we know the answer. You would have fined the owner $10 million, but you also would have commissioned a report; refused to release it; publicly lied about the reason for refusing to release it—saying you were protecting the people who accused the owner of wrongdoing; and approve of the owner saying he would take a voluntary leave of absence to focus on a new stadium while his wife ran the team. We know this because it is exactly what Goodell did with Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder last year. It remains disgraceful.

How about the rest of us? Well, if I acted like Sarver in my workplace, I believe my employer would have just cause to fire me. But it is much easier to fire even a Guild-protected employee than to take a business away from the person who owns it.

Silver did that once, very early in his tenure, to Clippers owner Donald Sterling. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Silver had several leverage points in that situation. Sterling was caught on tape making undeniably racist comments. When Silver banned him and said he would try to force a sale, Sterling’s wife, Shelly, was able to take control of the team and sell it. Otherwise, Donald could have taken the NBA to court, and it’s not clear how that would have turned out.

Most of us just remember the broad outline of that situation. You can be pretty confident that Silver remembers those details. I also think, given Silver’s history of publicly supporting players’ social-justice causes and building relationships, you can comfortably say that Sarver’s gross conduct bothered him, both personally and professionally. He has earned the benefit of the doubt there.

So if you are Adam Silver, what do you do? In the world of modern pro sports, forcing an owner to sell is extremely rare, partly because it’s hard to do. In the 1990s, Major League Baseball suspended Reds owner Marge Schott for a year, suspended her again for two more, and finally was able to make her sell the team.

Forcing Sarver out sounds good until you actually try it. That would have put the NBA in a long legal battle with a murky chance of winning.

A lawsuit would also bring risks that most fans might not consider. Read this paragraph from the report:

On at least two occasions, Sarver made joking references to procuring women for NBA players to have sex with. On the first occasion, during the 2012–13 season, Sarver offered to fly in a “plane of girls to keep players in their rooms” while on a road trip. A female employee who overheard Sarver’s comment was shocked and upset by it. In another instance, when the Suns were recruiting a free agent in 2015, Sarver made a joke that the team should have players impregnate local Phoenix strippers so they would feel connected to the area, giving the Suns a potential edge in free agency recruitment.

As part of the larger pattern of misconduct, that’s pretty awful. But Sarver’s legal team would probably try to use the legal process to get every inappropriate joke and comment from an owner into the public record, to show Sarver was being held to an unfair standard. That would create an enormous headache for the NBA.

Outrage and pragmatism have to meet somewhere. It made sense for Silver to give Sarver the stiffest punishment he could indisputably implement. Could he have suspended Sarver for longer? Maybe. But a one-year ban does have some teeth, especially since Sarver’s NBA and WNBA teams could both have a chance to win the title next year. Owners buy these teams so they can make money and get the thrill of winning. Taking the latter away from Sarver does mean something.

We are also taking for granted that Silver released the full report. We shouldn’t. I don’t want to give Silver too much credit for releasing it—it was obviously the right thing to do. But while the report makes Sarver look terrible, it also opens Silver up to criticism that he didn’t penalize Sarver harshly enough.

This punishment is significant. I understand if people think it is not significant enough. My question is: What happens next?

On Tuesday, the Suns released a statement, which included: “Robert Sarver is also taking responsibility for his actions. He recognizes that at times during his eighteen years of ownership, his conduct did not reflect his, or the Suns’ values, and was inconsistent with the advancements the management team has taken with Robert’s full support.”

But why should anybody believe NBA-mandated workplace training will work some sort of magic on Sarver’s soul? He was accused of racism and sexism and never showed a capacity for self-reflection before. Sarver had previously denied most of the accounts in ESPN’s original report.

There is a real chance that a year from now, Sarver will return to the Suns and Mercury and act like we expect Robert Sarver to act. Silver and the NBA had better have a plan for what to do then.