Suns owner Robert Sarver said N-word on multiple occasions, made lewd comments in meetings, per report

Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver, who is White, has said the N-word on multiple occasions, made lewd, misogynistic comments in meetings and presided over a toxic work environment in which employees have been discouraged from going to the human resources office, according to a wide-ranging story by ESPN’s Baxter Holmes published Thursday. 

Among the incidents reported by ESPN:

• Sarver repeatedly said the N-word in the coaches room after a loss against the Golden State Warriors in 2016, complaining that Draymond Green, who is Black, said it during the game. Then-coach Earl Watson told him, “You can’t f—ing say that.” 
• At least six Suns employees described Sarver saying the N-word aloud when repeating something a Black player had said. 
• In telling a Suns employee that he wanted to hire Lindsey Hunter, who is Black, instead of Dan Majerle, who is White, as coach in 2013, Sarver said, “These [N-words] need a [N-word],” according to an executive who heard the conversation.
• Sarver made a racially insensitive comment during Steve Nash’s recruiting meeting in the summer of 2004. An executive in the room said, “We signed Steve Nash despite Robert.” 
• As the Suns tried to sign LaMarcus Aldridge in 2015, they knew that he would like to play near his children in Texas. Sarver said then that they needed to get Phoenix-area strippers pregnant with NBA-player children so the team could have an edge in recruiting. “A lot of the stuff he says is to get a big reaction,” a former employee said. “And who’s going to tell him that he can’t? He speaks in threats. He likes that awkwardness. He likes people to know that he’s in charge. He wants control. He wants control of every situation and every person.”
• While involved in a contract dispute with Eric Bledsoe’s agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, Sarver threatened to fire Watson unless the coach, who was also represented by Klutch, ditched the agency. “It’s almost like an ownership thing,” Watson said. “He wants people to call him and beg him.”
• During Watson’s first season, the coach was asked to suggest areas in which the organization could improve. When he said that the Suns could use more diversity, Sarver responded, “I don’t like diversity,” according to Watson and a basketball operations employee, explaining that he believes diversity makes it more difficult for people to agree on things.
• Sarver made lewd comments in all-staff meetings, according to more than a dozen employees. Examples include talking about his wife performing oral sex on him and claiming that he wears extra-large condoms. “Women have very little value,” said a woman who used to work for the team, describing how she felt when she was there. “Women are possessions. And I think we’re nowhere close to where he thinks men are.”
• In the team’s training room, Sarver asked former Suns player Taylor Griffin, who was lifting weights, whether or not he shaves his legs. When Griffin answered in the affirmative, Sarver asked, “Do you shave your balls, too?” This was during the 2009-10 season, and, according to a Suns employee, Sarver asked the same question to others over the next several years. Griffin said, “At the time, I took it as a joke. Looking back on it in the context of today, for a leader of a company or the owner of a team to say such a thing is inappropriate.”
• A former human resources representative said, “I would say [to employees seeking help], ‘Let’s go take a walk. Because if they see you being here, they’re gonna come after you.”http://www.cbssports.com/” Another former HR rep said that it was “sort of a culture of complicity. Which I was a part of. And I hate saying that.”

Weeks before the story’s publication, Sarver released a statement denying “any and all suggestions that I used disparaging language related to race or gender.” In the story he specifically denied saying the N-word to Watson, saying anything inappropriate in the Nash meeting, making the comment about getting strippers pregnant to lure free agents, saying the N-word when discussing hiring Hunter and talking about his sex life with employees.

Sarver said that his problem with Watson working for Klutch was about a “conflict of interest,” and that he only gave the picture of his wife in a bikini to employees in charge of merchandise, as she was wearing a sample and he wanted to know if they wanted to sell the item in the team shop. On the Griffin incident, he said he doesn’t remember using “those exact words” but he did “make a joking reference to men’s grooming habits with Taylor Griffin once in the locker room. I remember that Taylor laughed at my comment.”

This is not an exhaustive list of the reported allegations. The story also includes several anecdotes of Sarver reacting inappropriately to Phoenix’s performance on the court. “He was constantly meddling and trying to coach himself or go into the coaches’ office and start drawing X’s and O’s on the board at halftime and tell them they need to do this, they need to do that,” a longtime former employee said. Sarver did not answer questions about his interactions with the team.