Bulls’ Nikola Mirotic Hospitalized After Teammate Bobby Portis Punched Him in the Face (UPDATE)

The Bulls projected season in a nutshell.

Nikola Mirotic.
USA Today Sports

Image via USA Today Sports/Patrick Gorski

Nikola Mirotic.

UPDATED October 18 4:30 p.m. ET:

The Bulls have reportedly suspended Portis for eight games.

The team's vice president of basketball operations John Paxson explained the reasoning for the punishment in a statement to the media 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."

Paxson later added that it would not be accurate to categorize the blow as a "sucker punch," and also explained that he didn't think the incident was indicative of Portis being a total dick. "Bobby Portis is not a bad person," he said. "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. ...

"This is a team suspension. We did get counsel and advice from the league because this is really unprecedented in a practice situation. There's altercations a lot of times, but the result of Niko's injuries are why we've taken the position that we have."

As for Mirotic, he's expected to miss four-to-six weeks.

Original story below

Everybody expects the Bulls to suck this year. So this sounds like a pretty appropriate omen to go down just two days before their season opener.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, according to The Vertical's Shams Charania, Chicago forward Nikola Mirotic was injured after an altercation with teammate Bobby Portis:

The two players apparently got into a shoving match which escalated when Portis connected with a shot that dropped Mirotic for "several minutes."

Mirotic was hospitalized with some fractured bones in his face, though he has since been released.

The 26-year-old veteran was expected to start this season, and averaged 10.6 points and 5.5 rebounds per game last year. But, as you could've (and probably did) read above, he is now out indefinitely. When it comes to Portis, there is no word yet on what his punishment will be. Anyways, the Bulls can expect to get punched in the face a lot this season, though from here on out hopefully it's just a metaphor.

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