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It was less than a week ago that Ron Artest said he "probably won't" opt out of the final year of his contract with the Kings. But yesterday, in an email to the Sacramento Bee's Sam Amick, he said he's starting to change his mind:

"I never knew so many teams would be coming after me," he wrote. "All I can say is I made a hundred degree turnaround."

(One hundred degrees? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant 180. And when you think about it, saying 100 degrees is more accurate than the more common mistake of saying 360. But I digress ...)

Artest is already on the record saying that the mid-level won't be enough to woo him ("Not in a million years," he said. "Actually, not in 10 million years"), so he must be getting feelers that someone is willing to break the bank. Who knows, maybe Boston really did make defense fashionable again. There really aren't a lot of teams with more than the MLE to spend, but if the Kings are going to lose him, they might be enticed to participate in a sign-and-trade for the right package.

For the record, his agent followed Artest's comments by saying all the right things about wanting to stay in Sacramento, but who do you believe? The player speaking from the heart or the guy trained in feeding the media messages?