Late morning Thursday, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Bobby Portis had received a 25-game suspension for violating the league’s drug policy. What drug did he take? How did it happen? Details emerged shortly after Shams’ initial report.
“Portis tested positive for the drug Tramadol,” Charania reports, “a medication used to treat severe pain among adults. It is an instance that his representative, Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports, said was an accident.”
Amidst another solid season averaging 13.7 PPG and 8.3 RPG, Portis will now be absent during the Bucks’ battle for playoff position down the stretch. Not everyone agreed with the degree of punishment for what is being branded an accident involving a fairly routine pain med.
Fans Find 25-Games a Heavy-Handed Penalty for Bobby Portis and Milwaukee Bucks
ESPN reached out to Portis’ agent, Mark Bartelstein, who said the following: “I am devastated for Bobby right now because he made an honest mistake and the ramifications of it are incredibly significant.” Indeed, after the Bucks struggled during Portis’ earlier 6-game absence due to personal reasons, the news that they will miss him for most of the rest of the season is a substantial blow, one primed to brew uneasiness among fans–many of whom took the side of Portis and Bartelstein.
25 games for Tramadol?? Bruh was just tryna hoop without pain 💀😂
— SophiaLoves (@SophiaLoves01) February 20, 2025
Tramadol is glorified Tylenol lol.
— daggolden (@daggolden) February 20, 2025
My dad just got prescribed tramadol for a recent knee surgery , and it’s not for severe pain … it’s for moderate pain says so right on the bottle lol not worth 25 game suspension
— ilir …(ill-er) (@ilir_cerimi) February 20, 2025
If it was truly an accident, slapping Portis with 25 games seems like overkill. Sure, punishment is supposed to deter future wrongdoers, but how can players avoid “crimes” if unaware they committed one? By doubting the doctor who is supposed to have their best interests in mind, or at least a level of expertise alien to most players?
Some say he should have checked the ingredients, but with pro leagues’ ever-growing list of banned substances, there is no guarantee–in fact, it is downright unlikely–that a player would identify every penalized drug upon perusal.
Portis’ Agent Explains What Went Wrong
In Portis’ case, it appears that no lack of knowledge, but rather a simple mistake, is to blame. Bartelstein’s full statement is below.
Bobby unintentionally took a pain medication called Tramadol, thinking he was taking a pain medication called Toradol. Toradol is an approved pain medication that he has used previously and that teams and players use for pain and inflammation at times. Tramadol, however, is not an approved pain medication and was just recently added to the banned substance list this past summer. 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. 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 and believed he was taking Toradol to alleviate some pain in preparation for that night’s game.
One tweeter commented, “Silver is a mess.”
“What a league,” marveled another.
Of course, Bartelstein’s statement could all be an elaborate ruse, but there seems no evidence to think so. It would be nice to see the league revisit their drug suspension policies in the future to more appropriately account for deliberate versus unintended violations.
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