After the Detroit fight, and all of his other incidents over the years, Ron Artest is on the shortest of leashes with NBA commissioner David Stern, who fined him $10,000 on Thursday for making his trade demands public to the Indianapolis Star.

"I was upset when he first did it," Pacers chief executive officer Donnie Walsh said last week. "I told him, 'Ronnie, why wouldn't you come in and talk to me? I'm here every day. I'm here at every practice. Why wouldn't you talk to me or Larry?' "

Walsh now agrees with Artest that because of all the baggage, it's time for him to go.

"If this guy makes the wrong move out there, everything freezes," Walsh said. "There's some truth to that."

But the team is still seething. One member of the Pacers organization who did not want to be identified used the word betrayal, over and over, and it's not too strong.