The Mayor Of Phoenix Announces That The City Is Looking Into All Possible Measures They Can Take Against Robert Sarver

Harry How. Getty Images.

Remember yesterday when I said that if Adam Silver thought his press conference was going to put this matter to bed he was sorely mistaken? That if anything, his final ruling and then doubling down on that ruling to the press was only going to make this a bigger deal? Then LeBron weighed in, followed by current Sun Chris Paul and that's exactly what's happening. 

Today, the Mayor of Phoenix released a statement saying that city leaders are going to investigate to see if there's anything they can do about it. If you remember, it was Robert Sarver who tried to get public money (around $150M) to improve the Suns arena. That didn't exactly go over too well

Ultimately the city voted and ended up handing over $150M with the Suns chipping in $80M of their own money. There were other aspects of the deal including keeping the team in downtown Phoenix through 2037 or they face a $200M fine, but in the end, the public pretty much did fund the renovations.

Maybe they should have just listened to Greta in the first place. My question is, can the city actually even do anything to remove Sarver from the league? Isn't it a private entity? What's interesting here is the building the Suns play in, The Footprint Center, is owned by the Phoenix City Council. Could they maybe institute some sort of lifetime ban? If you remember, when Donald Sterling lost his team the ruling was a lifetime ban. The league didn't technically "take" his team but with the ban, it was basically the same thing. You could make the case that the city of Phoenix is pretty invested in the success and perception of the Suns, so it'll be fascinating to see what ends up happening. If the league isn't going to do anything about it, it looks like the city is going to see if they can take matters into their own hands.

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Either way, it doesn't seem like this issue is going away any time soon.