Bobby Portis Suspended For Punching Chicago Bulls Teammate Nikola Mirotic

Bobby Portis was handed 8 games suspension by the Bulls, after punching his teammate Nikola Mirotic.

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ESPN reports that the Chicago Bulls‘ forward Bobby Portis received eight games suspension for punching his teammate Nikola Mirotic during team’s practice on Tuesday. Portis and Mirotic first had a verbal confrontation before things became physical. At one point, Portis threw a punch and Mirotic ended up in the hospital. Mirotic suffered two facial fractures and a concussion and will be out for at least 4 weeks. Portis and Mirotic were the candidates for the same spot in the Bulls’ starting 5, with Mirotic eventually securing the place for himself.

The Chicago Bulls’ vice president of basketball operations, John Paxson, spoke about the incident on Wednesday.

“Both players owned responsibility in the incident itself,” – 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.” Paxon also added that this is a team’s suspension, although the Bulls have asked the league for advice.

Although the Portis was the one to throw a punch, the rest of the Bulls’ players consider that Mirotic also has his part of the blame for the confrontation.

We talked with Bobby,” said center Robin Lopez. “Obviously he’s regretful about what he did. We talked about it as a team afterward. Everything was still so fresh. We as a team feel there’s blame on both sides. When it comes down to it the punch was inexcusable.

Bobby Portis played 2 seasons for Arkansas Razorbacks during college, before entering the 2015 NBA draft. He was selected by the Chicago Bulls with the 22nd overall pick. During his time with the Bulls, Portis never managed to emerge as a regular starter, entering most of the games from the bench. In 126 regular season games played in the NBA, Portis averaged 6.9 points and 5 rebounds per game.

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