The Chicago Bulls have suspended forward Bobby Portis, after a dispute with teammate Nikola Mirotic turned physical. As tensions flared and the incident escalated, Portis punched Mirotic, leaving him with facial fractures and a concussion, but the team’s vice president of basketball operations says it was not a “sucker punch.”
“Both players owned responsibility in the incident itself,” John Paxson said. “But only one player threw a punch. And that punch connected and for us that is inexcusable. It’s not who we are. It disappoints us in terms of what happened, and because of that we’ve determined that we’re going to suspend Bobby for eight games.”
Now, with Portis out for eight games, and Mirotic set to miss at least four to six weeks for his injury, the team must reconstruct its starting lineup. According to ESPN, Mirotic was expected to start over Portis, but now rookie Lauri Markkanen will get his first start on Thursday.
“Bobby Portis is not a bad person,” Paxon continued. “He’s a good kid. He’s a competitive kid, but in this instance he made a mistake. And as we all know when you make mistakes you got to suffer the consequences… This is a team suspension. We did get counsel and advice from the league because this is really unprecedented in a practice situation. There [are] altercations a lot of times, but the result of Niko’s injuries are why we’ve taken the position that we have.”
After the incident, Portis was reportedly regretful for his actions, however the team believed there was blame on both sides in the incident. But, the league will hold a meeting with Portis to discuss his actions.
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