Does Marvin Bagley want out of Sacramento? Here is what he should have said

You can learn a lot by what somebody doesn’t say.

The Sacramento Kings’ Marvin Bagley III has a history of keeping quiet. Last season, it took a teammate egging him on for Bagley to talk about his shoe collection.

But it’s not like he doesn’t know how to talk.

During the second-half of a dramatic Kings win over the Houston Rockets in December 2019, Bagley sat on the Kings bench with an injury. Bagley started talking smack to Russell Westbrook, the Rockets’ star guard. Westbrook got fired up, at one point hitting a shot and talking to Bagley about it all the way back down the floor.

After the game, Bagley chided reporters for wanting to talk to Nemanja Bjelica, who hit a game-winning 3-pointer from 33 feet out, and not him.

Well Marvin, you could tell us what you were saying to Westbrook that got him so fired up. Bagley could have explained how the two played on the same team in a Southern California summer camp a few months earlier.

Yeah, no. Bagley wasn’t going to talk about anything.

Kings fans shouldn’t be surprised at how Bagley handled himself Sunday when he sat down to face the media and said nothing about a trade demand issued by his father Saturday night. His dad tweeted the team should trade him Saturday and Bagley III faced the media Sunday.

He had a chance to say something. He was asked if he wanted to dispel rumors about him wanting a trade. He didn’t answer the question.

“Like I said, tomorrow’s gonna be a big game for us. Excited about that. Excited to get on the court and play tomorrow,” Bagley said.

He talked about practice. He talked about showing up ready to play. He talked about playing with a chip on his shoulder. He didn’t give a simple yes or no on wanting to leave the team that drafted him with the No. 2 overall pick in 2018.

He talked. He didn’t say anything.

The art of saying nothing is something of a joke in sports circles. The baseball movie “Bull Durham” doled out plenty of vapid, meaningless quotes that are used to this day. Saying nothing is often a sport in itself.

But here’s a situation where the team is hurt by his non-answer because it looks like Bagley wants out of town.

It’s possible Bagley was coached to give non-answers. But it doesn’t make much sense for the team to tell Bagley to say nothing and then sit him down in front of reporters Sunday afternoon, where he promptly said he wasn’t going to talk about his dad’s trade demand.

Bagley is in a tricky situation. His parents moved from the Phoenix area to Sacramento to support Marvin when he was taken by the Kings at 19 years old. His dad is an active coach and trainer who has opinions of his own to share. Father and son are very close.

There’s an example of how to handle social media flap from one of his teammates, De’Aaron Fox, whose own father tweeted Sunday night saying the Kings should trade Bagley. About an hour after his dad’s tweet, De’Aaron had a simple response: “Jesus Christ,” he tweeted. He could have also been tweeting about Steph Curry’s 62-point game Sunday; here’s betting it was an expression of frustration.

In lieu of any information from Marvin Bagley III, Kings fans are left to read the tea leaves. It looks like he wants out of Sacramento. If that’s not true, it isn’t hard to address. All he had to say Sunday was “I know what my Dad said but I want to stay here and become an All-Star.”

Bagley can still say that. All it takes is a tweet.

Here’s an idea: Never tweet, Dad.

This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 8:16 AM.