Sacramento Kings star De'Aaron Fox is in some hot water right now after he decided to pull out of an ongoing NFT project named “SwipaTheFox.” The worst part about this is that people have already purchased the NFTs — to the amount of a whopping $1.5 million — before Fox decided to pull the plug on the project entirely.

According to a report by NFT resource website, Web3 Is Going Great, the Kings guard himself announced via the project's Discord that he has decided to temporarily remove his participation after realizing that he had “overstepped and stretched myself too thin, trying to do this project in the middle of an NBA season.”

Fox also made an official statement via Twitter explaining his abrupt decision to pull out in order to focus on his basketball:

https://twitter.com/swipathefox/status/1496949627077406721

https://twitter.com/swipathefox/status/1496949911283453952

https://twitter.com/swipathefox/status/1496949986822664197

The optics are undeniably bad here. Fox decided to shut down the project after they sold $1.5 million worth of NFTs. No wonder people are calling this rug pull a scam. For what it's worth, Fox has reportedly offered to “compensate” disgruntled stakeholders by giving each of them a signed jersey, which currently retails at around $100 online. However, this is only applicable for buyers who purchased at least five NFTs, which would have cost roughly $1,300. The value of the NFT has since tanked and that same purchase of five SwipaTheFox NFTs now has a total value of approximately $40.

The project, which launched on January 15th, had an extensive roadmap that promised “a metaverse basketball court, a scholarship to a University of Kentucky student, and chances to win all-star game tickets, as well as ‘much more to come.' Unfortunately, none of these have come to fruition — at least in the short term.