Bobby Portis received’t be qualified to return to the Bucks right until April 8. (Picture by Stacy Revere/Getty Photos)
Milwaukee Bucks ahead Bobby Portis was suspended twenty five game titles with no buy violating the NBA’s anti-drug system, the league introduced Thursday. He examined positive for Tramadol.
Portis’ agent, Mark Bartelstein, introduced an announcement saying the violation was primarily a combination-up. Bartelstein claimed Portis assumed he was having a agony medication known as Toradol, and that is approved, but as an alternative took Tramadol, which is not. The assertion explained Portis was supplied the incorrect medication by an assistant of his, and it had been “an truthful blunder.”
“Bobby Portis is absolutely not a drug abuser,” Bartelstein wrote. “Bobby is effective tirelessly on expanding hisperformance in all pure, legal and healthy strategies, but he created a error and took a capsule that unknowingly he should not have. Now, In this particular occasion, I'm so deeply unhappy which the NBA chooses to interpret its plan so strictly, and that the policy isn't going to permit for a unique result for an trustworthy mistake with pure intentions.”
In a statement launched because of the Bucks, Portis said, “I truly feel Terrible and identify that I’m chargeable for what I set in my system. From The underside of my heart, I need to apologize on the Bucks Firm, my teammates, coaches, relatives and admirers. I give everything I've within the court and can terribly skip playing game titles to the Bucks for the duration of this time.”
Bucks basic supervisor Jon Horst mentioned that whilst “this is the very difficult set of circumstances for Bobby and our crew … we a hundred% assist Bobby.”
The twenty five-sport suspension would make Portis ineligible to return right until the Bucks’ April 8 property game in opposition to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Including that match, the Bucks would've just 4 regular-season video games remaining. Milwaukee at this time sits in fifth location while in the Japanese Convention, just one game again of the Indiana Pacers.
Portis has performed in forty six video games to the Bucks this period, averaging twenty five.two minutes, 13.seven factors and eight.three rebounds per recreation.