Bobby Portis won’t be eligible to return for the Bucks till April 8. (Photograph by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Milwaukee Bucks ahead Bobby Portis was suspended twenty five game titles with out pay for violating the NBA’s anti-drug plan, the league announced Thursday. He analyzed positive for Tramadol.

Portis’ agent, Mark Bartelstein, released a press release claiming the violation was essentially a mixture-up. Bartelstein claimed Portis considered he was getting a ache medication referred to as Toradol, which can be accepted, but as an alternative took Tramadol, which isn't. The statement reported Portis was supplied the incorrect medication by an assistant of his, and it was “an genuine slip-up.”

“Bobby Portis is absolutely not a drug abuser,” Bartelstein wrote. “Bobby will work tirelessly on growing hisperformance in all purely natural, legal and nutritious methods, but he designed a mistake and took a pill that unknowingly he shouldn't have. Currently, Within this instance, I am so deeply dissatisfied the NBA chooses to interpret its coverage so strictly, and that the policy will not make it possible for for another result for an sincere blunder with pure intentions.”

In a statement launched through the Bucks, Portis explained, “I come to feel horrible and understand which i’m responsible for what I set in my human body. From the bottom of my coronary heart, I need to apologize for the Bucks organization, my teammates, coaches, family and admirers. I give anything I have over the court and can terribly skip participating in video games for that Bucks for the duration of this time.”

Bucks common manager Jon Horst reported that although “this is the very difficult set of conditions for Bobby and our team … we 100% assist Bobby.”

The twenty five-activity suspension would make Portis ineligible to return until finally the Bucks’ April 8 household game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Like that video game, the Bucks would've just 4 common-year online games remaining. Milwaukee at this time sits in fifth place within the Jap Convention, just one video game back again on the Indiana Pacers.

Portis has played in forty six video games for your Bucks this season, averaging twenty five.2 minutes, thirteen.7 factors and 8.3 rebounds per activity.