Said one former Suns executive: "All of [the owners] in a different form or fashion would say Robert is a lucky charm in real estate. He's really good at what he does business-wise. ... So his discipline away from the game of basketball is what always pissed me off. Because he wasn't a f---ing dummy.
Now, he's a misogynist and a racist, but he wasn't dumb. And he acted like a dummy around the game of basketball. And that was the thing that pissed me off so much because he was smart enough to know better."
"He's not clueless," said another member of the ownership group of Sarver's behavior. "He's doing it because of power."
Seventeen years in, after posting the NBA's second-best record last season at 51-21 and making the NBA Finals for the first time since 1993, Suns employees said Robert Sarver's behavior remains the same.
"It's bittersweet," a co-owner said of the team's resurgent success. "It just doesn't feel good to be involved with him."
The current executive discourages people from working at the Suns and knows others who do the same.
Said another current employee, "If I knew -- and I wish I knew what I was coming into -- I would have never taken the job here. Never."