Paul Coro

The Republic | azcentral.com

Robert Sarver has dealt with recession at the helm of the largest Arizona-headquartered bank, Western Alliance Bancorporation, and as partner and co-founder of a 26-year-old real-estate firm, Southwest Value Partners.

The playoff recession in his other business, the Phoenix Suns, keeps him awake at night. The Suns and their fans will endure the longest postseason drought in the franchise’s 48-year history upon completion of this season, which is on pace at 17-47 to be the worst campaign since their inaugural season.

Despite owning a team in a standings free-fall that included a franchise-worst 3-30 stretch, Sarver said he feels better about where the Suns are than at any point in the past 18 months. He credits that to the development of Suns 19-year-old guard Devin Booker, potentially “the face of the franchise,” Sarver said, for the next 10 years, and 22-year-old center Alex Len.

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Sarver, who purchased the Suns with partners nearly 12 years ago, said his ownership plans are for the long haul now “more so than ever.”

“I think I’m getting better at it,” Sarver, 54, told azcentral sports from his 14th-floor downtown Phoenix bank headquarters overlooking Talking Stick Resort Arena. “I think I understand it better. I think I’ve got myself surrounded with some good people and we’ve got some great young players to really build our franchise with, which is what we’re going to have to do. If you look at a lot of the good teams right now, they went through three, four, five, six tough years to be able to get all those young players and have that consistency to compete at a high level for an extended period of time.

“I think we’re taking steps to do that but they’re painful. It’s hard. It’s hard for me, too. I go to bed sometimes after games and just can’t get to sleep. I’m as disappointed at times in myself than everybody else is, too. Maybe it’s hard to believe that but it’s true."

The Suns have been beset this season by major injuries to their top three scorers but the issues have been deeper. Disgruntled players such as Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas and Markieff Morris created distractions and prompted trades in the past 13 months. Sarver’s primary disappointment in watching the Suns lose 23 of their final 34 games last season and plummet to the NBA’s third-worst record this season is the lack of communication, motivation, responsibility and accountability.

“We have to start building on a winning culture, which centers a lot around more robust communication, outlining more clearly roles and responsibilities and different levels we’re going to hold people accountable to,” Sarver said. “Part of that is (Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough’s) job. Part of that is the coach’s job. And quite frankly, part of that is the captains of the team’s job, too.”

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Foundation in place

To that end, Sarver is moving forward with McDonough and Tyson Chandler, the offseason’s $52 million free agency splash for leadership and defense.

Sarver said McDonough “definitely” will remain GM of the team next season. In his third season as Suns GM, McDonough is running the basketball operations for the first time; Lon Babby moved from the role of president to part-time adviser last summer. Sarver has hailed McDonough’s talent evaluation and is excited about the future of his draft picks (Booker, Len, T.J. Warren and Archie Goodwin) in what he believes are key areas to NBA success: drafting and developing.

He said McDonough is doing a better job of communicating expectations and holding players accountable with the help of interim head coach Earl Watson.

Chandler was signed in July in part to become a much-needed leader for the team and a mentor for Len. He also was targeted largely to help land free agent LaMarcus Aldridge, who chose San Antonio, and turn around the defense - which remains the NBA’s second worst this season. Sarver values Chandler’s influence on the team and believes he will play better next season at age 34.

This season went awry, prompting the dismissals of assistant coaches and then the head coach, Jeff Hornacek - even before the team had a 13-game losing streak and tied a franchise record with 17 consecutive road losses.

The Suns have had six head coaches over the past nine seasons and three general managers over the past seven seasons.

“We would like stability in terms of our front office and coaching,” Sarver said. “But at the end of the day, this is a results business and everybody needs to be held accountable.”

Sarver pointed to how the Suns attempted to recruit LeBron James and Aldridge in the past two seasons and again will be aggressive this summer. The Suns, though, will have to compete with most of the league for top talent because of the NBA's rapidly rising salary cap. He said their plan over the past three years was to develop young players and add high-level talent via free agency or trades.

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Suns fans: It's OK to be angry

Those attempts have gone sideways, and Sarver actually is pleased by Suns fans’ furor for the slip of a franchise that maintains the fourth-best winning percentage in NBA history.

“If we’re not doing well, I want the fans to be just as pissed off as I am because passion is important,” Sarver said. “I don’t want fans who don’t care. Whether that passion is when we’re doing great and the stadium’s packed and everyone’s excited or when that is the other way, when we’re not doing good and the stadium is maybe not as crowded as we like and fans are a little bit disappointed. I’d rather see that, too.”

Sarver’s passion is undeniable. It is there for all to see from his corner courtside seat, where he often berates officials, quarrels with opposing players and yells out to the scorer’s table for replays on the arena video screen.

His engagement off the court has prompted a label that he meddles too much in basketball operations. He said he weighs in more on things he can read, like players’ on-court behavior, which he said has taken a turn for the better.

“I’ve never really been that hands-on in terms of player decisions,” Sarver said. “That’s really up to our staff. ... My job is to give both of those guys the financial resources and the emotional support to do as well as they can. I wouldn’t confuse my passion for winning with kind of being involved in the day-to-day operations, because I’m not.”

Recently, Sarver wrote an open letter to fans and held a question-and-answer call with about 600 season-ticket holders before talking exclusively to azcentral sports. He said he wants to be “transparent” and answer to the same queries and criticisms about the Suns that he hears at his Valley home from his wife, Penny, and three sons, Max, Jake and Zach.

As he asks for accountability from the Suns, he said he is trying to display it, too.

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“My biggest regret is that, as a manager of people, I feel I let the organization down in terms of the culture,” Sarver said. “I didn’t put my handprint on that culture and maybe didn’t hold people as accountable as I should and really make sure we’re putting that together. But I’m starting to see some of that.”

A turnaround in the team's performance could not come soon enough for the sake of a new arena, although Sarver said he does not believe winning is tied to support in a public referendum for an arena.

Sarver said timing is a more important factor. The Suns have a 2021 out in their lease for Talking Stick Resort Arena, which is among the NBA’s older venues. As the Arizona Coyotes and Arizona State University move toward an agreement on a joint venture for a new arena, the Suns remain in need of a new building with more suites and amenities.

With plans or construction in motion on new arenas for Golden State, Milwaukee and Sacramento, Phoenix would have the NBA’s fifth-oldest building but that is counting the 1968 opening of New York’s Madison Square Garden, which finished a $1 billion renovation in 2013.

“Eventually, we will need one in order to be competitive in the league,” Sarver said. “ ... We have an out in five years if it’s deemed to be obsolete and not competitive enough. So as we get closer to that period, that will be more evident as to what direction we’re going. But we’re - at some point - going to need a modern, Class A arena to play basketball here in Phoenix, which is what we’re going to do.”

Reach Paul Coro at paul.coro@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-2470. Follow him on Twitter at @paulcoro.