Clay, I'm going to say this one time because you clearly aren't smart enough to follow my entirely consistent line of reasoning and I'm tired of you constantly misconstruing everything I post. So after this, do not respond to any of my posts. I haven't responded to you for weeks and yet you continue your nonsense. I can't just let this nonsense from you continue, so this will be the last time I respond to you. It has been nice ignoring you and I will continue to do so after this.
There are two separate types of conduct. The first involves team activities and the 2nd does not. I have for years maintained that leagues should only regulate conduct that involves the former i.e. the field of play and that for all activities that do not involve the field of play, the teams should be the arbiters of the punishment and not the league. Watson's conduct did not involve the field of play so no, I didn't think the league should punish that conduct. If I was a team, I would have stayed far far away from Watson and would want nothing to do with him, but his conduct had absolutely nothing to do with the competitive balance of the actual game that they play, which is why I didn't think the league should do anything. That said, I understand the leagues do punish players for off field conduct, but when they do it, they need to adhere to their actual rules and not make them up as they go along. In the Watson case, the league was making up the rules as they went along. Given that, I felt what the arbitrator did i.e. 6 games made sense since that matched established precedent for similar conduct. You can't just change the rules, especially for negotiated conduct with the union, and seek punishments that far exceed prior precedent and fall outside the bounds of the actual established rules.
Sarver's conduct involves the actual "field of play" as much as an owner's conduct could. The allegations levied against him and which the investigation found to be true involve his actual employment with the Suns. For 18 years he fostered a hostile juvenile work environment that violated several laws and the NBA's own rules for conduct. He made women, men, and minorities feel uncomfortable at work. He pushed female employees to tears for sexist hateful comments. He exposed himself at work, he constantly talked about his genitalia, he made offensive jokes, told racist stories, etc. He continued to do that conduct for years after being warned not to do it. The Suns as an organization ignored complaints from employees because the complaints were levied against the person in charge. The NBA is the only entity that could punish the conduct in this instance and the NBA had already established a precedent for what to do when an owner was the person committing the heinous acts. That precedent was of course Sterling, who they forced out of the league because of conduct that occurred mostly away from the team. Here the conduct involved the team, its players, its staff, players and agents from around the league, Sarver's other businesses, etc. The league, having already established precedent, needs to keep that precedent. The fact that Sterling was on tape, just isn't good enough because they found all of the conduct in the report was actually committed. If that isn't enough to remove him, then nothing will be for basically any owner going forward. They now have a new precedent which means owners can do whatever they want with basically no consequence. It is a terrible message and quite frankly is despicable conduct. Silver is getting blasted for it, as he should, and now that the most famous player in the world is questioning the decision, I think there will be a lot more momentum to force him out entirely. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Suns are sold sometime this season and Sarver never sets foot in the arena again. It is after all the right thing to do.
Topic: Robert Sarver suspended one year, fined $10 million (Read 11803 times)