Sacramento Kings veteran center Dewayne Dedmon is a little lighter in the pocket now thanks to a public trade request that he made earlier this week. On Thursday, the NBA fined Dedmon $50,000 for "public statements detrimental to the NBA and its teams."
Dedmon has dropped out of Sacramento's rotation after inking a three-year, $40 million deal with the organization over the offseason, and he's clearly upset about it. After starting 52 times and averaging over 25 minutes per game in Atlanta last season, Dedmon is averaging just 13.6 minutes per game in four starts for the Kings so far this season. He has only played in two of the team's last 13 games for a total of seven minutes of game time, as Richaun Holmes and Harry Giles III have moved ahead of him in the rotation.
"I would like to be traded," Dedmon said earlier this week, via The Sacramento Bee. "I haven't been playing, so I would like to go somewhere where my talents are appreciated... I'm trying to play and I've been told I'm no longer in the rotation here, so there's really nothing to wait on."
The league doesn't like when players put their business in the street, thus the hefty fine for Dedmon. Ultimately though, if his comments help him find a new home somewhere across the league's landscape, he will likely view it as worthwhile. Dedmon had several suitors over the summer before he ultimately signed with Sacramento, so one would think that there would still be plenty of interested teams, should the Kings make him available. Considering the fact that they're not playing him, it seems likely that they will at least test the market.
