When the NBA handed down its ruling regarding Robert Sarver, owner of the Phoenix Suns, they didn’t expect as much pushback as they have received.
Over the last few days, the situation surrounding Sarver has escalated and spiraled and has cast both Sarver and the league in a bad light.
Practically none of the headlines about this have been complimentary to the league or Sarver and the bad press continues to pile up.
The fine for a flagrant foul is a greater percentage of the NBA's minimum salary than the fine that Robert Sarver received is of his net worth.
— Brady Klopfer (@BradyKlopferNBA) September 14, 2022
The $10 million fine and one-year suspension are coming across as paltry, especially when compared to the damage done to a player’s salary after a flagrant foul.
Brady Klopfer has a pretty startling comparison:
“The fine for a flagrant foul is a greater percentage of the NBA’s minimum salary than the fine that Robert Sarver received is of his net worth,” Klopfer stated on Twitter.
He continued: “Sarver got fined almost exactly 1/82nd of his net worth, which means it’s the financial equivalent of anything that gets an NBA player a 1-game suspension.”
You can’t argue with numbers and Klopfer’s finding is accurate and disappointing.
A Flimsy Fine
It is surprising to see Sarver’s ruling considering how offensive his actions were.
Yet, it seems that the NBA feels that he shouldn’t be punished too harshly since he claims that what he said and did was done as a joke.
The NBA said that it doesn’t think Sarver performed with animus toward people so he can learn from his mistakes.
But many others are pointing out that it doesn’t matter if he was trying to be hurtful or not.
Joke or no joke, what Sarver did was wrong and some argue that other people without his amount of power and clout wouldn’t have gotten off so easily.
NEXT: Suns Minority Owner Makes A Strong Demand