Portis apologizes to fans, Bulls organization for punching Mirotic
Chicago Bulls power forward Bobby Portis addressed the media Saturday for the first time since punching Nikola Mirotic at an Oct. 17 practice - an incident that earned Portis an eight-game suspension and left Mirotic injured.
"I'm wrong for what I did," Portis began. "I want to publicly apologize to Niko. I feel like I let my fans, the Bulls organization, and most importantly my teammates down. This is not who Bobby Portis is."
Bobby Portis addresses his suspension pic.twitter.com/DFr547ITIY
— Sean Highkin (@highkin) October 21, 2017
When asked whether he and Mirotic would be able to recover after the incident, Portis said, "Yes, I can co-exist with Niko going forward."
Portis privately addressed his teammates and coaches earlier in the week regarding the incident with Mirotic.
Mirotic is expected to miss four-to-six weeks while recovering from a concussion and facial fracture. With both Portis and Mirotic unavailable, rookie Lauri Markkanen started at power forward for the Bulls' season opener.