Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee reported earlier this afternoon that Rudy Gay has requested a trade from the Sacramento Kings.

Kings attempting to trade Rudy Gay (per his request), but adamant that they have no interest in Monta Ellis. — Ailene Voisin (@ailene_voisin) July 8, 2016

We've heard similar rumblings in the past about Gay's unhappiness with the Kings, but Voisin's tweet is a huge jump from speculation of unhappiness to a formal trade request.

On one hand, Gay's desire to play elsewhere makes some sense. He signed an extension with the Kings just weeks before Michael Malone was fired, and his tenure as a King has only gone downhill from there. He was a solid, efficient offensive contributor under Malone, and after a poor year under George Karl's leadership, a trade could do him some good.

On the other hand, the Kings just hired one of his former coaches in Memphis, Dave Joerger, and while Joerger's hiring didn't stop the Rudy Gay trade rumors, I did think that hire would, at the very least, improve Sacramento's standing in Rudy Gay's mind, and give him some optimism for his future in Sacramento.

Voisin's report came just minutes after ESPN's Marc Stein reported that the Kings are actively shopping Rudy Gay, Kosta Koufos, and Ben McLemore.

Kosta Koufos, Ben McLemore and, of course, Rudy Gay are three Sacramento Kings available via trade, according to league sources — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 8, 2016

At any rate, it's starting to feel like Rudy Gay's relationship with the Kings has soured to the point of no return, and I'm sure now that Voisin has made Gay's trade request public, it will only get worse.

Voisin has a knack for dropping major news items like this in a fairly nonchalant manner, so I want to at least keep the door open to the possibility that this is news Voisin had heard under previous circumstances, and it just sort of slipped out now. It's an odd time to request a trade if this just happened, and an even odder time to make public if the Kings are actually trying to trade him like Stein suggests. It doesn't exactly do anything for Gay's trade value, and if Gay's value is lowered by the publication of his request, it only decreases the likelihood that the Kings move him.

I don't know, something about how this slipped out the way that it did feels dubious. Stay tuned.

UPDATE:

Sean Cunningham of News10 has a conflicting report, saying there has never been a formal trade request by Rudy. Hrm.