He started by claiming the Kings' front office - not the NBL - had to drive the decision to lock fans out of the last two games of the series. "It took us to initiate these meetings, to push these meetings, to find out if there was going to be a crowd. Our front office had to call Perth and the league to find out what was going on. Are fans coming in? We had to initiate that," Bogut said. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video "We were told numerous times when [Kings owner] Paul Smith and [chief executive] Chris Pondgrass reached out to the league that it was business as usual. Everything’s fine. A day later, the NBA shuts down. The day after that, the Grand Prix shut down. We were just sitting in limbo." Bogut then claimed the NBL made players feel like "pawns" and subsequently saw his teammates' mental health deteriorate.

"You talk about mental health in athletes every day and that is a big, big issue in the last decade. I can tell you for a fact that there are guys in our locker room who are having some pretty big mental health issues from all of this," he said. "That’s not an excuse, that’s just a fact. That’s the reality of what we’re dealing with. "There are travel restrictions for guys from the [United] States, people that have grandparents on their death beds in our team - that probably only have a year or two left. They want to see their grandparents. These aren’t excuses for why we did what we did. They’re just facts of the matter. There were a lot of tears in a three-hour meeting." Bogut believes the NBL put their heads in the sand and also moved to discredit 'half truths' which have surfaced this week, including the offer of a private plane for the Kings' trip to Perth. "Retroactively, there was. Once we made our decision, all of a sudden there was an offer of a private jet. Would you guys consider changing your mind if you had a private jet?" Bogut said. "That just showed the ignorance of the matters at hand. It's not just about flying over there. We have imports who have families are really struggling right now.