Chicago Bulls Forward Nikola Mirotic Suffers Multiple Facial Fractures After an Altercation With Teammate Bobby Portis
Nikola Mirotić and Bobby Portis were supposed to compete for minutes at the power forward position this season, but things might have gotten a little out of hand during practice on Tuesday.
The Chicago Bulls have announced that Mirotić has sustained multiple facial fractures and a concussion after Portis sucker-punched him in the face during practice, and vice president of basketball operations John Paxson said Mirotić's expected to miss four to six weeks of action while he recovers. However, the forward will have to clear the league's concussion protocol first before he can return to the court.
Mirotić will likely need to undergo surgery, so the timetable for his return may change.
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Meanwhile, Portis is suspended for eight games for throwing the punch.
"Both players owned responsibility in the incident itself. 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," Paxson said Wednesday, via ESPN.
"Bobby Portis is not a bad person. 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," he added.
According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, Mirotić and Portis were going at it verbally in practice before it escalated into a physical altercation, so there was blame on both sides. However, Portis should have known better than to throw a punch. Now he's going to have to sit out the first eight games of the season.
With both Mirotić and Portis out of action, rookie Lauri Markkanen should get the start at power forward when the Bulls take on the Toronto Raptors in their season opener on Thursday. Second-year forward Paul Zipser should see significant minutes at the position as well.
