Brad Cesmat
This is Robert being Robert. Western Alliance Bancoroporation (NYSE WAL)
Times are tight for everyone, including sports owners. This isn’t a sympathy column for Robert Sarver. His main business is banking so everything that he does is tied to hitting the number on the positive side (except when it comes to winning on the basketball court). I’ve had current employees from the Suns and his other business who love working for him and rave how well he treats them. Just because my lens is from the years that the on-court product was at it’s absolute peak during the Jerry Colangelo ownership doesn’t mean that Robert doesn’t know what he’s doing with the once-proud franchise.
Come to think of it, I’ll take that last line back.
Here we are in year 10 of the Suns’ playoff drought. Here we are in the week that the franchise is opening it’s irregular season in Orlando and Robert let’s go of 30 employees. One of those tossed to the street on Monday was D.C. Headley. You don’t know D.C., because he wasn’t in a layup line or shooting jumpers. He was a 20-year loyal soldier.
The kind of person that you’d want to have as the first point of contact within your own company. He was a part of the franchise that worked with media and other behind the scenes duties. Of all the times to cut an employee, it’s the week where media far and wide are trying to get things done to cover the Suns and get information to the fans.
This is Robert being Robert. Western Alliance Bancoroporation (NYSE WAL)
Wednesday morning Sarver cleaned up the balance sheet a bit further, getting out of the G-League by selling the Northern Arizona Suns. Never mind that the G-League is becoming THE landing spot for high-end young players to develop who don’t want to do the traditional route to the pros. The NAZ Suns were going to play their games at Veterans Memorial, but rather than sell to local ownership and keep the team in Arizona it’s “bye, bye” and another entry that will be removed from the bottom line of the P&L.
This is Robert being Robert. Western Alliance Bancoroporation (NYSE WAL)
You shouldn’t be shocked, dismayed or upset, this is what we’ve been dealing with since the mid-2000’s. This is how it’s been since the last time the Suns had a playoff game (May 27th, 2010) . Robert isn’t going to sell. Why should he? He’s making big bank on this investment. He can always make the numbers look right for his NBA toy by just drawing a red line through an employee ID number and their dollar figure.
This is Robert being Robert. Western Alliance Bancoroporation (NYSE WAL)
