Suns owner Robert Sarver, self-aware as always, complains about the NBA’s schedule
Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver is whining about the shortened NBA season, and you're well within your rights to throw something as a result. Go ahead and chuck a stapler, or something. You've earned it.
Sarver has earned the ire of the NBA's fans by alternately pinching pennies or signing players to terrible deals in his seven-year run with the team. He was already as low in our eyes as NBA owners go (in the Non-Sexual Harassers Division, of course) even before the lockout. Somehow the lockout, which saw Sarver doing everything he could to stop a season and force the players into signing a miserable deal while costing untold thousands of people tangentially related to the NBA millions of dollars, made Sarver more of a despised figure.
And now, after acting as one of the principal influences in the NBA's shortened 66-game season, he is complaining on record because his Suns don't get to host the Miami Heat or Chicago Bulls in Phoenix this year. Again, you're allowed to throw things.
Here's Sarver, from AZCentral.com:
"I was disappointed for our fans," Suns Managing Partner Robert Sarver said. "When the preliminary schedule came out, I asked the league to reconsider and they didn't. You've got to factor in all the arenas and timelines, and they weren't able to move dates around."
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"For the most part, the schedule is computer-generated by a consulting firm that does schedules for the NHL and NBA," Sarver said. "Unfortunately for us, given the short schedule, we're not going to see some of the elite teams in the East."
If you know where to start, go ahead. I don't.
I can say that it's nice that Sarver doesn't want to disappoint his fans further, after denying them 16 games of Steve Nash and Phoenix Suns basketball. I'd be more worried about disappointing my arena workers, paid hourly and per game, who lost out on two months' worth of revenue before the holiday season. I'd be concerned about those you had to lay off from your organization during the summer. I'd think about those in the NBA head office that lost jobs because David Stern knew that hard-line owners like Sarver would pitch to kill as much of the season as they could to save money.
I'd go in a million other directions, possibly more, before I'd kvetch and ask "the league to reconsider" its schedule just because Ray Allen won't be swinging through town anytime soon.
Also, that lockout that Sarver's years of front office incompetence inspired, and Sarver's stubbornness extended? It cost a 10-year-old boy a chance to be seen on TV with Ray Allen last week. Just in case anyone forgot.
The Suns organization is filled with good people, and great players. Their players are great people, as well. They play an entertaining style of ball, and they have tremendous fans.
Their owner? Come up with your own blue words for this guy. We can't be bothered, because we're too busy throwing things.
