Phoenix Suns CEO Under Fire

know what, It's not good. It is damning. According to the NBA's own investigation of Robert Sarver, many current and former executives and employees told investigators that they believe Sarver's conduct had a trickle down effect, that he behaved poorly towards his direct reports, and those reports in turn found that they had felt that they had license to mistreat their own reports. The trickle down of toxicity it continues.

Our investigation finds instances in which certain Sons executives yelled at and subjected their colleagues to embarrassment, humiliation, and intimidation in the workplace, including conduct that constitutes bullying under the Sun's workplace policy. Oh boy, not shockingly, a lot of this abusive behavior seems to be of seems to be leveled at women. Yeah. One female employee told the investigators quote, I remember when all this stuff came out about Robert

and I thought, finally, but one. Are the others going to be held accountable to the main culprit appears to be high level executives, including CEO Jason Rowley, While Raleigh says more punishment will be coming for those who are responsible in this atmosphere of abuse. One former employee was like, Yo, you're gonna fire yourself or what like? Ause, it's you, my, it's you. And Rally is a guy mind you that.

The report says he once berated a pregnant female executive who had the balls to question the reporting structure of the SUNS by just straight up screaming at her, Who the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck are you to question the reporting structure? If I tell you to report to someone, you fucking report to them. The ESPN article indicates that the woman was then iced out, hassled over her maternity leave, and then she was fired when she returned to work from said maternity leave. I

think that's against the law. I'm pretty sure that's it's against some labor laws. It stated, quote, male team executives try to terminate the female employee while she was on leave, but the female's uh, the employee's female supervisor actually persuaded them to wait until the employee returned to work to then eliminate her physician. Who was this male executive that tried to get her fired and then later fired her, Yes,

CEO Jason Rowley. This is nuts, Like the entire report is somehow, some way more damning than the actual stuff about Robert Sarver alone. Fucking executives were just blatantly harassing and bullying and intimidating employees pretty much everywhere, allowing sexual harassment from team sponsors, forcing multiple pregnant women and new moms to quit. They just hated pregnant women. I don't think, I mean, no one hated pregnant women more than the

phoenix Suns brought for an office. They were like yo. It was so bad that the investigation concluded the Son's organization has been a difficult place for women to work, particularly if they have young children, and that Sons executives have on occasion treated female employees differently because of their gender and their pregnant and see what is the solution in Phoenix? I mean they got it all go everything, blow it all up, get them all gone, every single

last one of them. Every high ranking executive who worked during the Sarva era has to retire. You have to go. No golden parachute for you, deuces for you, see you later, have a nice life, go away. You can't build a better organization. You can't buy the Phoenix Suns and have these fucking assholes still in the building doing the same thing. That is just like changing ownership. And so the shit cloud that has hung over the Suns all year has not gone away. It is only becoming apparent that it

wasn't just one cloud. It was pretty much the entire sky. Let's play a little game. I am an NBA franchise. Who am I? I am currently the hottest team in the NBA right now at the moment, I've won seven games in a row. I have the second best record on the road in the entire NBA at ten and six. I'm playing currently at a six sixty six clip within my own conference. My star player has been completely maligned this year, but has been hot as fuck, averaging twenty

one eleven and four. My young star, who they locked up to a big extension in the offseason, who has been terrible all year, is playing twenty two, six and two over the last seven games, somehow shaking off all of that dust and disrespect. My coach, who's been largely considered to be on the hot seat, now stands in fifth place. Who am I? Who am I? I am the New York fucking Knicks. If you can believe that, are you serious? No one's talking about the Knicks right now.

I couldn't even believe these stats. I couldn't even belie believe that they were the hottest currently the hottest team in the NBA. From dead in the water at ten and thirteen, people saying Tibbs was gonna be fired, rising in the standings, being tied fifth with the Sixers. They are tied with the Sixers right now. Julius Randall from him chucking fifteen shots a game from six inches outside

the three point line to being unstoppable j RJ. Barrett going from the worst contract of the offseason to a legit borderline All star player, the team currently playing really good defense. We have to do some sort of deep dive soon. Like a autopsy on the death of the New York Yet Nick stinking because only one question matters right now. Is this a fluke? Or are the Knicks for real? Was this a bad start or is this

just a hot moment. We're gonna have to see. We're gonna have to see a really quick look at what's happening in Chicago. Bad news Bulls, It's not good, bad news bulls. Currently, the Bulls sat at eleven and eighteen in the East. How bad is eleven and eighteen in the East? Well, they are. They are closer to twelfth place, where the Wizards sit having lost ten in a row, than they are being in the final play and spot that's bad? How how sway? How bad are things in Chicago?

Following their fourth straight loss where they gave up one hundred and fifty points to the Carl Anthony Towns less Timberwolves, Zach Lavine said this, it's frustrating for all of us. I know it's frustrating for the fans. It's embarrassing. We're all a little embarrassed about it. Gordon Dragich said, we're not playing for each other. De more durou don't put it. Probably more bluntly, we look like shit. You think, yeah, you do. You look horrible. Everything about this team is bad.

I mean, thank god they have Lonzo Ball and he's just gonna be coming right around the block. Right. His returns eminent, right. No. No. The latest on Lonzo Ball also came out yesterday. Billy Donovan spoke to Lonzo and we now still have no timetable for his return. He is currently progressing towards running. My man, Lonzo Ball isn't even running, isn't even on a treadmill right now. When he does run, he now needs to be able to show that he can go after loose balls without pain.

He needs a quote significant ramp up for conditioning after he gets cleared to run, and then he has to do that without pain. Let me just say this, if you think Lonzo Ball is coming back this year, he is not. This is like a Zion thing from last year, same thing. He's not coming back. I would not be surprised if he goes to Beaverton to go work with Nike for a little while, just see if he can figure some things out, do some so searching, take some ayahuasca,

figure it all out. We'll do a full segment on the Bulls. Maybe soon, maybe not, but for now, shit has gone sideways. One thing is for sure, though, You think the Bulls regret signing Billy Donovan to a big extension, You mean the secret extension that they signed in the off season that nobody knew about until the season began. Yeah, some shit probably should remain secret. Figure out an outclause

of that. Finally, let's end the episode with a little bit of Christmas cheer courtesy of Adam Silver In the NBA. For the first time ever, the NBA is going to take care of players who played in the old ABA, the American Basketball Association Association that the league merged with in nineteen seventy six. Ever since the merger of the NBA, it's pretty much done everything possible to keep from having to take any semblance of caretaking of ABA players who

did not make it into the NBA. An entire organization is out there called Dropping Dimes, was formed actually to help struggling former players and vets, you know, lobby to the league to take financial stake in the welfare of

former ABA players. Right. So, finally, after eight years, the league has decided to open its purse it's enormous purse, by the way, and cut off time those slice for a league that's pretty much saved the entirety of pro basketball in America to the tune of twenty five million dollars. I mean, it's better than nothing, I guess, just in time for Christmas, this is unbelievably good news. I think for every ABA player whoever hooked on or never hooked on with an NBA team, some of many of whom

actually are struggling to this very day. All these guys are in their seventies and eighties, one hundred thousand dollars check probably going to be a nice little Christmas present for him. You might ask yourself, why did it take so long? Why did this take so long for the NBA to do the right thing? I don't know, but better late than never. Rite So much of what we love about the NBA came from the ABA. Fast breaks, tomahawk,

hammer dunks, threes, flashy players, personality. So it's only fair that the players who sort of develop what we have now and what we love about the league now and didn't make it into the new NBA would at least benefit somewhat tiny bit from a league that just makes billions and billions and billions and dollars in part because of the merger that saved them. That's all the time that we have for the Heat Check. Check out the feed for past episodes and some of the many episodes

that drop. Follow the Heat Check. As the twenty twenty two twenty twenty three season is hot right now, it's fin full swing. Do not forget to download, Please subscribe, Please tell all your friends, every single one of them, and follow us on social wed at this heat check and at Trista Crick on tiptok