Two Suspensions Regarding Workplace Misconduct

Recently, there have been two situations of major workplace misconduct in the NBA that resulted in year long suspensions.  Robert Sarver, the owner of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury, was suspended for a year and fined $10 million after an NBA investigation into reports (initially reported by Baxter Holmes of ESPN) and allegations of inappropriate and toxic behavior in the workplace, including racism, misogyny, sexism, and bullying.  Since the suspension was announced, Sarver announced that he is selling both franchises.  Not long after, Ime Udoka, the Celtics head coach, was suspended for a season due to what was initially reported as violation of team rules before reports escalating to a consensual inappropriate relationship with a coworker and then to unwanted language being used prior to the relationship with a subordinate, resulting in a yearlong suspension.

I have long pushed off writing about each of these two situations for different reasons.  For the Sarver situation, I initially pushed it off because I didn’t feel like I had a lot to say regarding this since I wasn’t surprised by the result of the investigation or too surprised this would happen with Sarver (or any owner of a pro sports team for that matter).  In Udoka’s situation, I didn’t feel like I knew enough information to comment on it as little information had come out.  That said, I feel as though I should comment on each situation considering it is a basketball blog and I have some thoughts I would like to share regarding each matter.

I will start with Sarver’s situation by saying that I am glad that he is not going to be owning NBA and WNBA teams now since the behavior the reporting and investigation found he did is unacceptable in any business.  Nobody should have to experience what Sarver put many employees through and I am glad that he will be out of the league.  As for the exact details of what happened, this almost went exactly as I expected with one major surprise to me, which I’ll get to shortly.  I figured he would be suspended but didn’t know what the length would be; the reason I was expecting around a year was because commissioner Adam Silver has to remain in good faith.  While many (including myself) would have rather a lifetime ban, the owners would not have been happy with this standard being applied for what owners do (surprise:  Sarver is not the only owner or executive who treats employees this way).  As for the fine, most owners wouldn’t flinch at it, but Sarver is one of the few that would since he has a reputation of being cheap by NBA owner standards.  $10 million is the maximum fine for owners in their charter (which makes what Silver said in his press conference regarding owners operating by a different set of rules true; their punishments are not determined by collective bargaining agreements), so it wasn’t surprising to see that part.  The league couldn’t force Sarver to sell his team without the support of the other owners (for everyone citing Donald Sterling, that was a weird situation where his wife owned part of the team and showed he was mentally unfit to own the team), and, despite Sarver being among the most hated owners, the owners wouldn’t want to set this precedent.

The part that I was surprised by was the fact that Sarver opted to sell the team.  I could see him being resilient and not selling the team, especially given the nature of his statements, but there is one reason that can be explained in two ways that I believe he did:  money.  First off, I expected sponsors would have pulled out had Sarver continued to own the team, though I don’t think that would have materialized until the end of the suspension (that’s when PayPal had threatened to start their boycott).  While it would be doable to continue operating, Sarver likely would not have loved operating with less revenue than before.  Of course, the other part is how much this team could sell for.  The Suns are expected to be the highest price for an American pro sports team considering the value of an NBA franchise, especially in a market like Phoenix with a good team, but how much could it go for?  I’ve heard numbers above $3 billion mentioned; I could see it bumping up higher if a bidding war occurs.  In that case, Sarver won in a certain sense, especially since there are reports of him being totally shameless, so the shame of being shooed out of the league (I expect the NBA tried coercing him into selling the teams) might not hit him the same way it would hit most.

As for Udoka’s situation, there is still a lot unknown about what exactly happened.  As such, I have no desire into speculating what happened that has not been reported, but I will say that hearing that unwanted language likely proceeded a consensual relationship makes me question how consensual the relationship was.  That said, if it was a consensual relationship, the issue isn’t the fact that there was a relationship but more so due to the power dynamics of the situation.  A head coach in Udoka’s situation could potentially have some pull and leverage in more aspects of the organization than you might expect in certain offices.  Many offices have implemented rules regarding workplace relationships for this reason and it is something I support.  Another thing that happened after this was people online trying to speculate who the other party was involved in this.  I found this very unfair because people who were not involved in this were being speculated as being involved, which should not be happening to individuals just living their lives.

The other major issue I have with this story was how it was initially reported.  When Adrian Wojnarowski broke the story, he effectively said that Udoka was facing punishment for violating a team policy without specifying what happened.  This decision to tweet this out in a blatant attempt to claim he was first resulted in a whirlwind on the internet speculating what this punishment might be (not something I am privy to either, but avoidable).  While many have criticized Woj’s initial tweet (and others criticized ESPN for approving this tweet, including myself, though not in post form until now), he then reported different facts than Shams Charania had reported, including the fact that the relationship was consensual.  Woj also went on live television to openly state that he had little doubt that Udoka would find another job.  While I found all this puzzling initially, Ethan Strauss pointed out something I had not considered:  Woj and Udoka use the same agency, something that has also diluted his reporting in the past.  This is something that I find troubling (though not as troubling as what the situation might be) since people assume reporters don’t have any sort of biases, though Strauss’ reporting has suggested that this likely is not the case with Woj.