Portis set to return from his 25-game suspension as Bucks host Timberwolves
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Bobby Portis is coming back from his 25-game suspension as the Milwaukee Bucks continue their push toward the playoffs.
The 30-year-old forward is expected to dress for the Bucks’ game Tuesday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves and make his first game appearance since the All-Star break. Portis was suspended on Feb. 20 after testing positive for the painkiller Tramadol, violating the league’s anti-drug program.
Portis has indicated he took Tramadol unintentionally. His agent, Mark Bartelstein, said Portis believed he was taking Toradol, which is approved and is something that he has taken before.
“When (the suspension) first came, I was mad,” Portis said on a video he posted Monday night on X. “I was angry that I was getting suspended. I didn’t really understand. Why me? It’s always a thing. Why me? Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to me?”
The suspension continued a difficult stretch for Portis in which his grandmother died and his home was burglarized. He reacted by counting his blessings, relying on the people closest to him and taking comfort in continuing to play basketball on his own.
“I’m thankful I get a chance to wake up every day,” Portis said. “I’m thankful I’ve got a great support system around me each and every day to keep me going. I’m thankful that I am able to still go play basketball. Obviously I can’t play in front of 20,000, 15,000 fans every night, but I still get a chance to get up and grind every day, to get better. I’m really just kept my head down, staying ready, so when it’s time to get back on the floor, I can be the best I can be.”
That time has arrived as the Bucks enter the final week of the regular season.
“Really excited to have him back,” teammate Kyle Kuzma said after the Bucks’ Tuesday morning shootaround. “I think that he is a huge part of our identity, our mood and feeling out there on the court. I think he’s somebody that has just a certain amount of aura to him, tenacity that can ignite a group.”
Bucks coach Doc Rivers said during his pregame availability Tuesday that it was human nature for Portis to feel angry about the suspension initially because “you feel like you’ve been branded a cheater when you know you didn’t cheat.” Rivers said it probably took Portis “a couple of good weeks” to get over that.
“He was doing the work, but his spirit wasn’t Bobby,” Rivers said. “And I don’t know when that turned, but it definitely turned. I thought the workouts really helped him. As crazy as it sounds, card games on the plane helped him. Maybe he was winning. Maybe the guys were letting him win, who knows? But I thought all that stuff helped him. It takes a family sometimes to get through stuff, and I thought our guys really, really embraced him.”
Portis lost $2,858,701 in salary because of the suspension. He has averaged 13.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and a career-high 2.2 assists in 46 games. His overall (.463) and 3-point (.364) shooting percentages are his lowest since 2019-20, his last season before joining the Bucks.
Milwaukee was 29-24 at the time of Portis’ suspension and went 15-10 in the 25 games he missed while enduring plenty of ups and downs.
The Bucks went 7-1 in the first eight games of Portis’ suspension, then lost nine of their next 13 games as their lack of frontcourt depth was exposed. During that slump, the Bucks also lost seven-time all-NBA guard Damian Lillard, who is out indefinitely as he deals with blood clots in his calf that leave his potential return uncertain. Lillard last played on March 18.
Milwaukee has since won four straight, though all those victories have come against teams with losing records. The Bucks are fifth in the Eastern Conference, the same position they held when Portis’ suspension began.
The Bucks are three games behind fourth-place Indiana with four games left in the season, though Milwaukee does have the head-to-head tiebreaker if the two teams finish with the same record. The top four teams in each conference earn home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs.
Because the Bucks have only four games left in the regular season, they won’t have much of an opportunity to get accustomed to playing together before the playoffs start. Milwaukee had added Kuzma as part of a series of moves at the trade deadline. Kuzma and Portis only were on the floor together for four games before Portis’ suspension.
Kuzma was asked if that would be enough time to establish cohesiveness before the postseason.
“I don’t know if that’s enough, to be honest — it’s four games — but it’s up to us to figure it out,” Kuzma said. “There’s no crying on the yacht, as they say. For us, we’ve just got to figure it out, go out and compete every night and make it make sense out there.”
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