I'm guessing Kim saw that the Mid Level Exception is looking at a significant decrease and decided to walk.

Seriously, I feel pretty bad for the guy. I'm assuming he went into this situation naively and trusted that this was legit.
After a career year averaging 10 and 10 in a contract season, the league enters a lockout resulting in a reduced MLE (probably his best case scenario) and a tighter salary cap. Then he gets dupped after 72 days of marriage and probably learned about it watching Ryan Seacrest on TV.
And (hat tip to my wife for the financials)he bought her a $2 million engagement ring that she'll be keeping. This reflected 62.5% of his gross NBA salary last year. SUNK COST.
Put into relative terms, imagine you make a healthy salary of $100K per year. You meet a girl who is clearly out of your league attractive and has a dicey reputation but you're so amazed that she's actually into you that you go all in and propose with a $62,500 engagement ring. You figure at the time that you had the best year of your career and are in line for either a big pay raise with your current company or will get a nice offer from someone else.
...cut to 3 months later.
Your industry is shut down and your coworker, who is seen as the foundation of your company (Deron Williams) is collecting a check in Turkey for 15% of his previous salary. Your best option is to spend the next few months in Serbia or Hong Kong, but you likely already passed up those opportunities to spend time with your now ex-wife.
Beyond that, the raise that you have been expecting is looking less and less likely as you follow the labor dispute that's keeping you out of work.
All you have left to show for presumably the most successful year of your adult life is the fact that you just spent 89% of last year's net income on an engagement ring for a 72 day marriage with no foreseeable opportunity to earn a paycheck in the near future.
Poor schmuck.