The NBA's Robert Sarver situation spotlights the ugly side of sports | Opinion

If you like your touchdowns on Sunday, home runs in October and 3-pointers in June, then you also get, sadly, unfortunately, the grotesque underbelly of professional sports. How much you like of one determines how much of the other you can tolerate, though you should be a bit queasy regardless.

The yin and yang of that dichotomy is magnified with the NBA’s Robert Sarver problem.

On Tuesday, the NBA fined Sarver $10 million and suspended him from all team activities for one season for his abhorrent workplace behavior that included racist and sexist language, bullying and distribution of pornography via email during his tenure as owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury.

Amid criticism that the league didn’t go far enough in its punishment of Sarver, NBA commissioner Adam Silver didn’t placate those concerns in a news conference on Wednesday.

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It is an innate truth, but Silver exposed it when asked by Sports Illustrated’s Howard Beck: “Why should there be a different standard for an NBA owner than it would be for everybody who works in this league?"

Silver answered: “There are particular rights here of someone who owns an NBA team as opposed to somebody who is an employee. ... There’s no neat answer here, other than owning property, the rights that come with owning an NBA team, how that’s set up within our constitution — what it would take to remove that team from his control is a very involved process, and it’s different than holding a job. It just is, when you actually own a team. It’s just a very different proposition."

Even Silver would no longer be commissioner of the NBA had he engaged in a fraction of the workplace behavior that Sarver did.

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the very rich are different from you and me, and Sarver is afforded a privilege based on wealth that a large percentage of people don’t have. But he should be held to a higher, not lower, standard given his ownership of a civic institution and executive, and his day of reckoning in this matter isn't over.

WHAT WE KNOW: Sarver's misconduct leads to fine, suspension

SUNS VICE CHAIRMAN: Pulls no punches in calling for Sarver's resignation

PLAYERS WEIGH IN: LeBron, Chris Paul criticize Sarver's lenient punishment

OPINION: Sarver will be out as Suns owner and the groundwork has been laid

Silver also reconfirmed that he works for the owners, just as every pro sports commissioner does. Sure, commissioners have a way of twisting arms to get what they think is best for a league, such as an in-season tournament and draft lottery reform.

Silver – and no one has told me this – probably would prefer a league with less Sarvers. But that’s not his call.

“I don’t have the right to take away his team,” he said. “I don’t want to rest on that legal point because of course there could be a process to take away someone’s team in this league. It’s very involved, and I ultimately made the decision that it didn’t rise to that level.”

And even if Silver started the process, owners have to vote on it, and like a good politician trying to get colleagues to go one way on a bill, Silver needs to know the results before he brings it up for a vote. Owners don't want to be involved in the messy process of removing another owner. You may not like that, but that's reality.

On days like Wednesday, it was Silver’s job to eat a mound of dirt for owners. It doesn’t taste good. Silver probably needed some sweetener to stomach some of what he said, including a half-hearted defense of Sarver and some of his good deeds. While saying what Sarver did was inexcusable, Silver should have refrained from laudatory comments. It wasn’t the time, even if he was trying to justify his decision.

But a couple of factors worked in Sarver's immediate favor. The law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz said its investigation “makes no finding that Sarver’s conduct was motivated by racial or gender-based animus.”

Remember the report was written by lawyers for lawyers, and Silver acknowledged, “that’s in some ways a legal distinction. I interpret their report to be saying that ‘we are not able to conclude, based on the context of those statements.’ … I understand the inference that can be drawn from those things, but they ultimately found there was insufficient evidence to make those findings.”

That’s a tough premise to digest when Sarver continued to use the N-word after he was told repeatedly he shouldn’t say it and when he told a pregnant woman “she would be unable to do her job upon becoming a mother,” according to the report. It is an affront to anyone who has sought a safe, respectful and welcoming workplace.

There is an argument to be made that Sarver’s actions were equal to or worse than Donald Sterling’s (he was banned from the NBA for life, fined and eventually sold the team), but Sarver never felt the public scrutiny that Sterling did.

Ever since ESPN’s report on Sarver almost a year ago, those interested in the developments waited for a smoking gun in the form of audio and/or video. Sterling’s leaked audio in 2014 first appeared on TMZ and then was all over the news before an investigation began. The story remained in the 24/7 news cycle with big names such as Magic Johnson appearing on CNN. That wasn't the case for Sarver, who might be the No. 1 combination of worst and least-known owner in the league.

What's next? Pressure is mounting, and Sarver likely will sell his share of the Suns and Mercury.

Sarver is 60 years old. At his age and lot in life – wealthy for the rest of his days – will he (and can he) grow and learn? And what difference does it make? Is the world a better place with an enlightened Robert Sarver?

It’s easy to be the cynic here. And rightfully so. Some just want him to go away and don't care given the damage he caused.

Perhaps this will influence a current owner or future owner. Or even an executive in another field.

There needs to be hope for a better day for more people as we wait for that next touchdown, home run and 3-pointer.

Even if that's a better Phoenix Suns franchise for its employees and fans without Sarver and those who advanced his lies that he did nothing wrong.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NBA owner Robert Sarver's behavior reveals ugly side of sports