Bobby Portis once punched a teammate in a practice, and he was suspended significantly for it.
Yet the former Chicago Bulls forward wants you to know his situation was vastly different from what Golden State Warriors veteran Draymond Green did earlier this week.
Portis was suspended for eight games by the Bulls in 2017 after he punched Nikola Mirotić in the face during a practice. Mirotić was knocked to the ground as a result of the hit. He sustained a concussion and facial fractures. He ended up missing 23 games that season.
One key detail in that incident, however, is that Mirotić had charged at Portis twice before Portis finally threw his punch. As he said on Twitter on Friday morning, he was “simply defending myself.”
Green, as clearly shown on video that was leaked to TMZ on Friday, was not provoked in the same way when he socked Warriors teammate Jordan Poole in practice on Wednesday night.
Not even close.
Green apologized to the Warriors on Thursday morning, and is expected to rejoin the team again in practice on Saturday. Warriors general manager Bob Myers said that discipline will be handled internally, and that he didn’t expect Green to be suspended for any games.
That, however, was before video of the punch was actually made public. Now that everyone has seen the actual punch in question, calls for a lengthy suspension have grown significantly.
Yes, the two incidents are still different. Mirotić was injured as a result of their altercation, while Myers confirmed that Poole was not.
But if Portis’ suspension is anything to go off of, it’s easy to see why an eight-game suspension would fit this time around.