The Sacramento Kings have benched Nemanja Bjelica as they look to build around De'Aaron Fox, sources told Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee.

Bjelica has not played in the last six games after discussions surrounding his playing time. 

The team has cited personal issues for his absence, though sources around Bjelica say he has no issues.

The Kings explored trading Bjelica around the draft, looking to add players who fit Fox's timeline.

The Sacramento Bee adds that the team is likely to continue to explore trades for Bjelica. 

Bogdan Bogdanovic denied a previous report from The Athletic indicated Giannis Antetokounmpo was active in recruiting Bogdanovic to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Bogdanovic indicated he is actually closer to Thanasis Antetokounmpo than to Giannis.

"We (Thanasis and Bogdanovic) are friends. We are friends, you know? I talked with him once monthly, once every two months. So we talk about it — we talked maybe in the bubble, not about me coming there, nothing like that. But we were like, ‘Ah, you guys are good,’ — bla, bla, bla, you know? Normal things. How is your family? Basketball things, we didn’t even talk about it because I know that they are professionals and they respect my professionalism and we never talked about it. We really never talked about it. When the news came out, we were like, ‘What the [expletive]?’ I didn’t know what was going on. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure what was going on."

Bogdanovic was asked if he reached out to Giannis to indicate he wouldn't join the Bucks.

"No, we didn’t (laughs), we couldn’t even — so I don’t talk with him like that. I’m not — I’m friends with Thanasis more. I didn’t even have to talk with him about it. He found it out probably the same way I did."

Antetokounmpo's involvement may have been more internally with the Bucks.

Bogdan Bogdanovic explained his side of his controversial restricted free agency in an interview with Sam Amick of The Athletic.

Reports surfaced before the start of free agency that the Milwaukee Bucks and Sacramento Kings had a sign-and-trade deal in place involving Bogdanovic. 

The confusion over how that happened remains to this day for Bogdanovic. 

The sign-and-trade was reported while Bogdanovic was asleep in Serbia.

"Everyone was congratulating me like it was done, and I didn’t know what was going on, really," said Bogdanovic. "And then, the NBA investigation — again, I’m reading it off the Twitter again, what was going on. My agent was obviously telling me, but what was unprofessional out of everything was not letting the player know, not letting him know what was going on. It was 1 a.m., 2 a.m. in (Belgrade) and I was sleeping. And I was sleeping the whole night. I wake up in the morning, I’m getting ready for my workout, and I see that on the Twitter. That was my experience of my free agency. After that, I was scared."

The sign-and-trade couldn't actually be agreed upon without the approval of Bogdanovic. 

"Yeah, but they couldn’t do that before free agency starts, so the next day the NBA investigation got in. My agent called me, and he told me, ‘This cannot be done. They screwed up. They cannot trade a restricted free agent before free agency starts.’ I really don’t know. I really don’t know what happened. But that was, at the end, what I heard from my agent. The NBA investigation is on this deal, so even if we agree, they can say this doesn’t count, that this is tampering."

The father of Marvin Begley III wrote a post on Twitter asking the Sacramento Kings to trade his son following the Sacramento Kings' 102-94 loss at the Houston Rockets on Saturday.

Bagley remained on the bench to close out Saturday's game.

“My message is always the same: We don’t listen to any of that,” Luke Walton said in response. “It’s us within these walls, us within this locker room. We’re in this together. Good or bad, whatever people are saying, we’ve got to do everything we can to not let that affect what we’re trying to get done here.”

Bagley's father also did not like the coaching of Dave Joerger during his rookie season with the Kings.

An MRI confirmed that Tyrese Haliburton has a bone bruise on his left wrist.

Haliburton will be re-evaluated when the team returns to Sacramento next week.

Haliburton is averaging 10.6 points and 4.4 assists in his first five games for the Kings.