The Chicago Bulls organization has had some problems on their hands this past week, and at a pretty bad time. Nikola Mirotic has been sidelined for roughly four to six weeks after suffering facial injuries and a concussion when he was punched by teammate Bobby Portis. The incident took place in practice last Tuesday as the two started fighting each other and Portis landed a punch which sent Mirotic to the floor, then the hospital.
Portis is currently serving an eight-game suspension for the incident and Mirotic is recovering from it. While Portis did apologize publicly, Mirotic has been very quiet and is not responding to teammates reaching out to him.
Suggesting there are still hard feelings toward Portis and his other teammates, there are now more uncertainties about Mirotic's future with the organization.
Failure to respond
Reports are saying that Portis reached out to Mirotic via text to apologize and mend their relationship after the incident. However, Mirotic has not responded to any of his texts per Chicago Tribune's K.C. Johnson. In fact, there are no reports of him contacting any of his teammates, and this silence continues to be more puzzling each passing day.
Mirotic's silence towards Portis exclusively was confirmed in his public apology back on October 21. Recorded by Johnson and Bulls beat reporter Sean Highkin, Portis said, "I'm in the wrong for what I did.
I want to publicly apologize to Niko." When asked about the relationship between the two, he said, "We're just competing, things happen."
Then finally he was asked about him personally reaching out to Mirotic, "I texted Niko," Portis said, "I called him. Didn't respond." He made it clear that he did not want to point fingers as to who started the altercation, but that he was ready to move on and work things out with everyone on the team.
Still, nothing yet heard from Mirotic.
Bobby Portis apologized. Said he has texted Mirotic but got no response. Wouldn’t get into whether Mirotic was an aggressor.
— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) October 21, 2017
Moving forward
Right now the puzzling silence is something people can make speculations about all they want, but only time will tell what will become of it.
The team is already under much criticism regarding the way the front office has handled the team over the years, and this drama helps nothing. The Bulls will not be competitive this year with a lot of inexperienced players on the roster, but there has to at least be unity in the locker room.
Will Mirotic take some sort of legal action against Portis? Will he even want to stay on the team? The more time passes, the more people will speculate. Both guys were in the wrong during the incident, but Portis accepted his punishment and offered the olive branch to Mirotic. If one side is not willing to work things out, then this messy situation will just continue and maybe get worse.
"I'm pretty sure we can move past this," Portis said in his apology statement. Hopefully, he is right.
