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The NBA handed down a significant 25-game suspension to Milwaukee Bucks forward Bobby Portis on Thursday after veteran violated the league’s anti-drug policy. Portis tested positive for Tramadol, and opioid used to treat severe pain in adults. However, the drug came with a valid prescription and Portis was told by one of his assistants that it was Toradol, a common painkilling drug used in the NBA.
“The tramadol pill he took came from an assistant of his, with a valid prescription for the painkiller, which he mistakenly told Bobby was Toradol,” Portis’ agent Mark Bartelstein said in a release. “This was, again, an honest mistake that was made because of the similarity in the names of the drugs and the fact they both serve a very similar purpose. Bobby was using this anti-inflammatory pain-reducing medication to deal with an elbow injury he had this past fall…”
Doctors Slam NBA Over Harsh Suspension To Bobby Portis For Tramadol Use
Bartelstein did note that Portis will not appeal the penalty. But many in the medical community feel that the suspension is unfair due to the fact that tramadol is commonly prescribed, relatively weak, and offers no performance enhancing benefits.
“If this is true, then this suspension is a complete joke,” Duke University Hospital neurologist Dylan Ryan said of the suspension.
While emergency physician Judson Merritt called the suspension “insane.”
“Tramadol is the weakest painkiller we can prescribe,” Merritt tweeted. “I often don’t bother because the effects are so mild. If it’s banned, it’s banned; but just shows how haphazard the NBA policies are.”
Portis, 30, is a 10-year NBA veteran in his fifth season in Milwaukee. He’s averaging 13.7 points and 8.3 rebounds per game this season for the Bucks and finished in the top-three of the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year voting in each of the past two seasons.
With Milwaukee sitting in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, his extended absence comes as a huge blow as the Bucks look to solidify their spot in an increasingly tight playoff race.