The creepy admissions of Suns owner Robert Sarver from the ESPN article

Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver and his legal team have issued a series of vehement denials in response to an ESPN article alleging that Sarver oversees and has participated in a work environment tainted by misogyny, toxicity, racism and more.

Sarver also has taken particular aim at former Suns coach Earl Watson, who accused Sarver of using the N-word in a conversation.

Among other things, Sarver said of the ESPN article, “Instead of reporting the truth, Holmes’ story (Baxter Holmes, a senior writer at ESPN) is based on misrepresentations from former Suns coach Earl Watson and other unnamed ‘sources.’ Mr. Watson created an unprofessional and toxic atmosphere in our organization. He is clearly not a credible source.”

I’ll get to what else Sarver said about Watson a little later.

What’s interesting now, however, is that among Sarver’s many denials there are a number of admissions that are, at the very least … creepy.

Sarver used his wife to model swimwear

Like, for example, the time Sarver handed out a photograph of his wife in a Suns bikini at a staff meeting, about which one anonymously quoted former team executive said, “We’re passing it around like a hot potato. Like, what in the hell are we supposed to do with this?”

Of this, Sarver said, “This is a perfect example of how things get twisted.”

He said a local a retailer was looking to sell NBA swimwear and had sent some of that merchandise to Sarver’s office. So, he added, “I took a picture of her in the sample.”

His wife?

And brought it to work?

And showed his staff?

Instead of simply passing along the swimwear to the merchandising department?

A former employee got 'pantsed' at work

And there was the time Sarver pulled down the pants of former Suns account executive David Bodzin in front of more than 60 employees at the team’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Yeah.

Bodzin told ESPN, “What does a 25-year-old say in that situation? They say, ‘OK.’ I was shellshocked. And as I’ve thought about it more, every year that it has gone by that I’ve thought about it, makes me angrier that I didn’t come forward about it.”

Through his attorney Sarver told ESPN, “I certainly did not mean to embarrass Mr. Bodzin. At the time, I thought this was taken as a joke by everyone in the room.”

'Do you shave your (private parts), too?'

Sarver says he is confident in a positive outcome from an investigation launched by the NBA following publication of the ESPN article. And Sarver’s partners, including Cardinals great Larry Fitzgerald, have issued a statement saying they “dispute the characterization of Mr. Sarver and the organization as racist and sexist” and adding, “We support Mr. Sarver’s leadership and stand with him.”

Although, I’m guessing none of them have been pantsed by Sarver.

Montini: Sarver needs some help from his pal Larry Fitzgerald now

Then there’s the time Sarver is said to have asked player Taylor Griffin if he shaved his legs, and followed that up with, “Do you shave your (private parts), too?”

Of that, Sarver said he didn’t “remember using those exact words,” but he did believe that the player laughed.

Again, I’d guess that’s not something he would ask one of his partners.

Several women spoke anonymously

Also described in the article is an episode where Sarver slams a stat sheet in a berating way on the table in front of assistant coach Corliss Williamson, who had been working with a player who’d had a bad game. To Williamson, a Black man, the incident felt like it had racial overtones.

He said he spoke to Sarver afterwards, telling ESPN, “I really wanted to make sure he didn’t do something like that to someone else who didn’t have a cooler head.”

There are a number of unnamed women quoted in the article as well, describing ugly, uncomfortable situations they’d found themselves in during their time working for the Suns.

Again, Sarver and the team deny the accusations. And the women are quoted anonymously, unlike former Suns coach Watson, who has been characterized by Sarver as a classic disgruntled former employee.

Sarver once described Watson as a 'leader'

It’s true that Watson was ignominiously fired by Sarver only three games into the 2017 season, which clearly left a bad taste in his mouth.

But he is still a young man, working on a career in coaching, and speaking out against a team owner risks career suicide.

When Watson was coaching the Suns, former Arizona Republic sports columnist Paola Boivin said of him, “Earl Watson cares. About fans, about players, about the history of the game. He is equal parts tactician and teacher, an NBA coach without the veneer of phoniness or the air of arrogance.”

And, in a 2016 interview with the Republic, Sarver himself had this to say about Watson: “He’s an old soul in a young body. He’s a little wise for his age. He’s shown that in being able to put a vision in front of our players and get them to embrace that vision and to practice that every day. To me, that’s the most important part of any leader – to get everyone on that bus going in the same direction – and he’s really been able to show that.”

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

For more opinions content, please subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Robert Sarver denies most of damning ESPN article, but not all of it