Steve Kerr saw `inappropriate' conduct from Robert Sarver, but no racism

When the initial report from ESPN came out about Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver last November, one of the few people to comment on the record was Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

Kerr told ESPN'S Baxter Holmes that he “never saw anything that suggested racism or misogyny, and I was very surprised to hear those allegations because that's not the person that I know.”

So how does Kerr — the GM of the Suns from 20072010 and a minority owner from 2004-2014 — feel now, more than a week after an NBA investigation found Sarver to have “clearly violated common workplace standards” and on the day Sarver announced that he is beginning the process to sell the teams?

“I stand by what I said because that was my experience — I wouldn't make that up,“Kerr said when reached by the phone on Wednesday. “What I witnessed was a guy who was, at times, inappropriate and whose sense of humor was sometimes over the top, but never anything that suggested racism.”

The NBA'S investigation, released last week, found Sarver used the N-word at least five times and treated female employees poorly, including “sex-related comments” and inappropriate remarks about their appearances. The report also said Sarver was demeaning and harsh to employees.

Several incidents happened during Kerr's time as general manager of the Suns from 2007-10. The investigation found Sarver made multiple sex-related, sophomoric comments at all-employee meetings and made other “sexual, crude, and vulgar comments and conduct in the workplace” throughout the entirety of his ownership. He also had “numerous crude comments about players' sex lives, bodies, and sexual orientation,” with one specific incident cited as having happened during the 2009-10 season, Kerr's final year as Suns GM.

Asked about these incidents, Kerr said the thing he remembered was “inappropriate humor, inappropriate jokes.”

“There's no doubt that that was part of the experience there,” Kerr said. “At that point, it's up to anybody to judge what's inappropriate and what goes beyond inappropriate, and however you want to assess that is up to the individual.” Kerr also reiterated that, while he witnessed Sarver's “inappropriate” humor but “never anything that suggested racism,” he left the organization 12 years ago and that he believes the incidents reported on Sarver are true. How does he square up what he felt he knew of Sarver with what he read in the report?

“I guess everybody's relationship with each other is different,” Kerr said. “We all have friendships or relationships that are personal and that we see certain sides of people. So I don't think that … that doesn't really factor in for me, you know? That was what I witnessed and that was my comment.”

Kerr said he first met Sarver, a fellow University of Arizona alum, when former Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson connected the two in 2004. Sarver expressed interest in owning an NBA team, so Kerr said he and Sarver flew to New York to meet with then-commissioner David Stern.

Sarver would then buy the Suns and Mercury that summer, with Kerr getting a minority ownership stake. Kerr kept that stake until he was forced to sell it to become the Warriors' head coach ahead of the 2014-15 season.

Several players, including the Warriors' Draymond Green, spoke out against Sarver and the NBA in the week following the investigation, keeping public pressure on the issue. Kerr said he “didn't really have” an opinion on Sarver's decision Wednesday to sell the team, calling these issues “complex.”

“I think everyone wants to be able to put everything in a really simple term and say, `This is what should happen, this is what shouldn't happen,'” Kerr said. “These things are really complex, including a lot of legal ramifications for the league. Does the league want to put itself in a position where they end up in a huge lawsuit based off of ownership? And the answer is no. Why would they? So whatever he decides to do, it's not coming from the league, it's coming from the pressure that he's feeling.”

Kerr said he hasn't spoken to Warriors players about Sarver or his time in Phoenix since the investigation was released. He had been on a long vacation and then at a retreat with his staff busy preparing for the season, which begins Saturday with the opening of training camp.