The Phoenix Suns aren’t holding back after a bombshell lawsuit dropped their CEO’s name into some serious drama.
On Tuesday, the team slammed a claim that CEO Josh Bartelstein (the youngest CEO in the league) had an affair with former Mercury player Sophie Cunningham, calling it “entirely false and morally reprehensible.”
The statement said, “The recent reports concerning Josh Bartelstein and Sophie Cunningham are entirely false and morally reprehensible,” the statement reads. “Let’s absolutely be clear about the origins of these claims.”
The allegation showed up in a lawsuit from Gene Traylor, a current Suns employee and former director of security.
While the main focus of his suit is on alleged discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, it briefly mentions rumors of an affair between Bartelstein and Cunningham.
According to Traylor, after he flagged ongoing security issues, like undercover law enforcement allegedly getting into the Suns’ arena with guns and knives, the team demoted him.
He says the Suns then brought in Cornelius Craig as VP of security to push him out. And here’s where it gets messy: Traylor claims he told Bartelstein that Craig was spreading rumors, specifically saying, “Josh Bartelstein is f***ing Sophie Cunningham.”
That single sentence is what launched this tabloid-worthy headline.
Cunningham, who played for the Mercury from 2019 to 2024, was traded to the Indiana Fever in the offseason.
She’s currently out with an ankle injury. Neither she nor Bartelstein has commented publicly since the claim surfaced. Bartelstein was Cunningham’s professional superior, since he was the CEO of the Suns and the Mercury.
The Suns, in multiple statements, are blasting both the lawsuit and the attorney behind it, Sheree Wright.
They accuse her of filing multiple “delusional” suits and trying to extort the team.
Wright fired back, telling Front Office Sports, “I’m not interested in litigating this in the media. I will respond in court — where evidence, not headlines, decides the outcome.”
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