NBA Players Union Exec Wants Suns’ Sarver Banned for Life

Tamika Tremaglio, the National Basketball Players Association executive director, shared that Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver should not be allowed to be in any “managerial” role following the NBA’s investigation into the workplace misconduct.

On Tuesday, the NBA announced that Sarver would serve a one-year suspension and a fine of $10 million as punishment to the investigation’s findings. However, as company sponsors, players—LeBron James and Chris Paul—and Suns minority owner Jahm Najafi have weighed in on the NBA’s discipline of the investigation, Tremaglio is calling for Sarver to be banned from the NBA.

“We are absolutely calling for that,” Tremaglio told ESPN’s Malika Andrews on NBA Today. “We do not want him to be in a position where he is managing and engaging with individuals ... or our players. We are absolutely clear from our findings in the report that we do not want him to be in that position.”

The league’s investigation found that Sarver said the n-word at least five times during his 18-year ownership tenure in Phoenix. It also revealed that he consistently acted inappropriately toward employees, including numerous “sex-related comments toward female employees.” Sarver also made “inappropriate comments about the physical appearance” of women who worked both for the team and elsewhere, and he reportedly engaged in “inappropriate physical conduct toward male employees,” per the report. 

Tremaglio’s response comes hours after PayPal, which had one year remaining on a deal as Phoenix’s jersey patch sponsor, announced earlier Friday that it would not continue its agreement if Sarver remained the team’s owner. 

ESPN initially reported on Sarver’s behavior in November 2021. From there, the NBA launched an investigation soon afterward. However, the league shared in a statement that it chose not to move forward with disciplinary action because it believed Sarver’s conduct was not “motivated by racial or gender-based animus.”