Portis, 30, previously had a $13.4 million player option for the upcoming season that he declined. He was eligible for free agency. His new contract has a player option for the 2027-28 season, according to the report.
Portis joined the Bucks prior to the 2020-21 season and has been a valuable contributor since, including during their run to the 2021 NBA championship. Portis has 99 starts in his five seasons with the Bucks, but has primarily been utilized as Milwaukee’s sixth man.
Bobby Portis has been one of the league’s best sixth men since joining the Bucks. (Steven Ryan/Getty Images)
Steven Ryan via Getty Images
Portis was limited to 49 games in 2024-25 primarily due to a 25-game suspension for violating the NBA’s anti-drug program. Portis’ agent contended that Portis thought he was taking approved pain medication Toradol, but instead took Tramadol, which is banned by the league.
Portis returned before the end of the season and for the playoffs. He averaged 13.9 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game while shooting 46.6% from the floor and 36.5% from 3 as Milwaukee’s top scorer and rebounder off the bench. He was second on the team in rebounds only to Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Portis rejoins the Bucks amid an offseason of uncertainty. All-Star guard Damian Lillard suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in the playoffs that’s expected to sideline him for most, if not all of the 2025-26 season.
Lillard’s injury has further diminished Milwaukee’s hopes of contending next season and raised questions about Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee. Antetokounmpo has been the subject of trade rumors, but remains on the Bucks in the aftermath of the NBA Draft on the eve of the start of free agency negotiations around the league.
The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani holds a bat and smiles while looking across the field during a game against the Nationals at Dodger Stadium on June 22. (Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)
All-Star voting resumes Monday at 9 a.m. PDT for 48 hours with the Dodgers entertaining the possibility of fielding an unprecedented eight position players.
The top two vote-getters at each position through Phase 1 of voting are finalists and moved on to Phase 2, which ends Wednesday at 9 a.m. PDT. The defending World Series champion Dodgers boast a finalist at each infield position and two among six outfielders.
Even though only three Dodgers led National League Phase 1 voting at their position, all eight have an equal chance of starting because votes don’t carry over to Phase 2. The player at each position to accumulate the most votes in the two-day window will start the July 15 game at Truist Park in Atlanta.
“Very proud. It’s great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Obviously we’re playing well. As it stands now, we’re the best team in the National League, so we should have the most All-Star voting for the team.”
Shohei Ohtani locked in an automatic spot as starting designated hitter because he led all National League players with 3,967,668 votes in Phase 1. Catcher Will Smith and first baseman Freddie Freeman are the other Dodgers to lead voting, while second baseman Tommy Edman, shortstop Mookie Betts and third baseman Max Muncy finished second. Among outfielders, Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages finished second and fifth, respectively.
In American League voting, the Angels’ Mike Trout is one of four finalists to secure one of two openings in the outfield. Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees already earned a starting spot by leading all players with 4,012,983 votes in Phase 1.
Trout, who has 13 home runs in 56 games, is competing against Riley Green and Javier Báez of the Detroit Tigers and Steven Kwan of the Cleveland Guardians.
Voting can be done online at MLB.com/vote, all 30 team websites, the MLB app and the MLB ballpark app. The winners will be announced on ESPN at 1 p.m.
The most position players voted to start an All-Star Game from a single team is five — accomplished by the 1976 Cincinnati Reds ,the 1956 and 1957 Cincinnati Redlegs and the 1939 New York Yankees.
“I hope we get five, six, seven Dodgers,” Roberts said. “That’d be great.”
National League finalists Catcher: Will Smith (Dodgers), Carson Kelly (Cubs) First base: Freddie Freeman (Dodgers), Pete Alonso (Mets) Second base: Ketel Marte (Diamondbacks), Tommy Edman (Dodgers) Shortstop: Francisco Lindor (Mets), Mookie Betts (Dodgers) Third base: Manny Machado (Padres), Max Muncy (Dodgers) Outfield: Pete Crow-Armstrong (Cubs), Teoscar Hernández (Dodgers), Ronald Acuña Jr. (Braves), Kyle Tucker (Cubs), Andy Pages (Dodgers), Juan Soto (Mets)
American League finalists Catcher: Cal Raleigh (Mariners), Alejandro Kirk (Blue Jays) First base: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Blue Jays), Paul Goldschmidt (Yankees) Second base: Gleyber Torres (Tigers), Jackson Holliday (Orioles) Shortstop: Jacob Wilson (Athletics), Bobby Witt Jr., (Royals) Third base: José Ramírez (Guardians), Alex Bregman (Red Sox) Outfield: Riley Greene (Tigers), Javier Báez (Tigers), Mike Trout (Angels), Steven Kwan (Guardians)
Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski throws during the fifth inning of a win over the Kansas City Royals Sunday in Kansas City, Mo. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)
In truth, there was very little notable action on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.
In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Kansas City Royals — a victory that clinched the weekend series and gave the club a 5-1 record on this past week’s road trip — Wrobleski continued to quietly impress as a depth pitching option for the Dodgers, pitching six scoreless innings that were short on flash but long on substance; serving as the latest productive outing in his suddenly auspicious sophomore season.
“Justin’s confidence is at an all-time high,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And he’s a confident young man already.”
Entering the game behind opener Lou Trivino at the start of the second, Wrobleski made easy work of a struggling Kansas City offense, giving up just three hits and one walk in a six-strikeout showing as the Dodgers (53-32) pulled away at the plate.
Kiké Hernández hit a two-run homer in the second. Will Smith added a solo shot in the sixth. And by the time the team tacked on two more runs in the seventh, such extra insurance was already looking unneeded.
Instead, Wrobleski further raised his stock in what has been a surprise midseason rejuvenation, turning in his best career performance at the big-league level.
Over his 83-pitch outing, the Royals (39-45) only once managed to even put a runner in scoring position. They squandered all three leadoff hitters who reached base. And during their best opportunity to rally in the third, Wrobleski mowed through the heart of their order, sandwiching one strikeout of Jonathan India and fielder’s choice grounder from Vinnie Pasquantino with a statement-sending punchout of Royals star Bobby Witt Jr., getting him to whiff on a 96-mph fastball and putaway two-strike slider.
“Bobby Witt is one of the best hitters in the game,” Roberts said. “And for him to beat him with the fastball, he wasn’t doing that last year.”
Indeed, few saw Wrobleski’s surge coming this season.
Wrobleski was optioned back to the minor leagues after that, and made only one MLB appearance over the next two months: a four-inning outing in mop-up relief duty during a May 15 blowout of the Athletics.
At the start of June, however, he was called back up to make a spot start in St. Louis, turning in a decent six-inning, four-run effort. And since then, he has continued to get better each time out. In his last 20 innings — all of them coming in bulk relief — he has conceded just four earned runs while striking out 21 batters. His overall ERA in five June appearances was 2.73.
“Having that bad one in Washington, honestly, set me back in a good way,” Wrobleski said. “I had to go back down, make a few adjustments.”
And now, he joked, that D.C. start “feels like it was three years ago.”
The biggest difference with Wrobleski of late has been his fastball. In that April start against the Nationals, it averaged just 93 mph. In every outing since, it has sat around 96-97 mph, and topped out above 99 mph.
Wrobleski credited the improvement with some small mechanical tweaks, having adopted a wider base in his pre-pitch stance and incorporated a rocking motion in his delivery to help him direct his momentum toward the plate.
But also, he said he has simply found a way to throw with maximum effort more consistently — coupling it with an increased reliance on his sinker to attack the zone and induce quick outs.
“I think it just goes back to me being me,” said Wrobleski, an 11th round pick out of Oklahoma State in 2021. “That’s how I got here was doing that. I got away from it a little bit, tried to quote-unquote ‘throw strikes,’ and when you do that, it leads to results that are not desirable. But at the end of the day, [I just want to] throw my best stuff for as long as I can until they take the ball. I think that’s been a major key.”
As a result, Wrobleski’s name is quickly rising among the hierarchy of young Dodgers pitching.
The fact that he was even on this road trip was a sign of the organization’s growing confidence in his abilities.
During the team’s last homestand, fellow young talent Emmet Sheehan returned from Tommy John surgery with four sharp innings, and seemed primed to occupy an open spot in the Dodgers’ rotation moving forward. However, with Sheehan not yet fully built up, the club elected to option him back to triple A and have Wrobleski pitch twice in a six-day span this week, with a five-inning, two-run outing in Colorado on Tuesday preceding Sunday’s gem in Kansas City.
Sheehan should be back in the majors soon, having pitched six perfect innings with 13 strikeouts in a start with Oklahoma City on Wednesday (manager Dave Roberts said Sheehan’s next outing will also be with OKC, though he could still rejoin the Dodgers before the end of their upcoming homestand).
But now, he’s not the only former prospect showing flashes of being an impact option in the majors.
“He’s changed a lot,” Roberts said of the team’s evaluation of Wrobleski. “We’ve always valued him and thought a lot of him as far as the talent. But right now, he’s getting major league hitters out … And in the spirit of getting opportunities while earning them, he’s doing that.”
The New York Rangers have one clear option regarding how to handle K’Andre Miller’s future.
Whether Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury likes it or not, he has to keep Miller, at least for now.
Since the 2024-25 season ended, Miller has been the subject of trade rumors as the team has been attempting to shop him.
Now though, the draft has come and gone and Miller remains a Ranger and that’s no coincidence.
Answers about what the future holds for Miller have not been answered and chatter about the situation has been quiet over the past few days. There are two reasons for that.
First off, the Rangers don’t like what they’ve been offered so far for Miller, which has held up a potential trade.
On the other side of things, the Rangers don’t want to give Miller a long-term contract extension, slowing down negotiations between the two sides.
The Rangers and Miller are essentially at a stalemate right now. Both signing a long-term contract extension and finding a feasible trade that the Rangers could be content with continue to seem more and more difficult.
It’s critical the Rangers don’t panic though and trade Miller for an underwhelming return because the 25-year-old defenseman still has a ton of potential and it would be foolish to give up on him for nothing.
Rangers’ situation with K’Andre Miller may end up being resolved in the short term but not necessarily in the long term.
At this point, the wisest move for the Rangers would be to give Miller a one-year bridge contract and let the 2025-26 season play out with him on the roster and determine later if he’s worthy of a long-term extension.
So for now, the Rangers should keep Miller and avoid a potential disaster where they don’t maximize his full value.
Francisco Alvarez appears to be finding his groove down in Triple-A.
The Mets‘ young backstop lifted a 434-foot three-run shot on Saturday night, and he followed that up with another strong showing on Sunday.
After failing to reach in each of his first two plate appearances, Alvarez stepped to the plate with Syracuse trailing by a run in the fifth, and he ripped a double over center fielder Robert Hassell III’s head.
It left the bat at an impressive 109.6 mph and one-hopped the fence.
He would score the game-tying run just three pitches later, as the red hot Pablo Reyes tripled down the left-field line as part of a three-hot effort.
Alvarez was called out on strikes with a man in scoring position in the seventh, but he was able to do more damage two innings later, as he crushed a go-ahead two-run homer to deep left-center.
This one left the bat at 107.2 mph and traveled 412 feet.
The 23-year-old has now gone deep on back-to-back days after going hitless in each of his first three games following his demotion from the big-league level.
Luisangel Acuña reached base for the sixth time in seven games since he was sent back down — lining a one out single in the top of the seventh, and he picked up his third stolen base of the season at the level.
On the pitching side of things Syracuse’s bullpen was pretty impressive — youngster Dom Hamel tossed two scoreless innings, Rico Garcia put up a zero of his own, Austin Warren struck out the side in the eighth, and Justin Garza locked down the save.
Following a tough 13-game stretch that saw the Mets get swept at home by the Tampa Bay Rays and then win just three out of 10 straight games against NL East opponents, the team came into Pittsburgh this weekend with a chance to right the ship against one of the worst teams, record-wise, in the National League.
But hopes of turning things around quickly dissipated, and what could have been a bounce-back weekend became another nightmarish series for the Mets, as the Pirates swept the three-game set in dominant fashion, outscoring New York 30-4.
“It’s frustrating, and we are all frustrated, obviously. Not gonna lie, we’re better than that, and they know that,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after Sunday’s 12-1 defeat. “It’s a tough stretch, but we’ve got to be better. It starts with me. We believe in those guys. Off day tomorrow, and then we’ve got another good team coming into town in the Brewers. They’re playing well, so we’ve got to bring our best game.
“[We’ll] continue to support the guys, but obviously we’re not happy about it.”
The Mets found themselves in an early hole on Sunday that proved to be too much for the club to dig out of, as starter Frankie Montas allowed five two-out runs in the first inning, including back-to-back home runs from Oneil Cruz and Tommy Pham.
Montas stuck around for 4.0 innings, allowing six earned runs on seven hits while striking out five and walking one, but his poor first inning was too much for the Mets to overcome.
“To be honest, just in that first inning I felt like I was missing my spots a little bit,” Montas said. “I thought I threw some pretty good pitches after that.
“I feel like I wasn’t really commanding my fastball the way I wanted to, and that’s the thing. If you’re not hitting your spots, they’re going to hit you pretty good.”
The Mets, who are now just 19-25 on the road this season and currently sit 1.5 games behind Philadelphia in the NL East standings, have an off day on Monday before welcoming the Milwaukee Brewers (winners of eight of their last 10) to Citi Field, starting on Tuesday night.
The Mets know they were outplayed by the Pirates in every facet during this weekend’s set, but Francisco Lindor explained that the hope is the off day allows them to reset before facing a hot Brewers club.
“It’s a tough stretch for sure. Hopefully getting the day off, the mental day off, and getting away from the field, we can come back and get back on the horse,” Lindor said.
“There’s a big league team on the other side,” he added later about the three-game sweep. “We’ve got to tip our cap to them, they outplayed us. They pitched better than us, they hit better than us, they got on base better than us, they played better defense. It’s a big league team on the other side. With that being said, there’s a sense of, yeah, we’re frustrated that we’re not winning, but at the end of the day it’s just part of the adversity that we’re dealing with right now.
“We’ve got to stick together and play as hard as we can to come out of it. Hopefully once we’re out of it, we don’t go back to something like this.”
The Yankees closed their weekend set with a 12-5 win over the Athletics on Sunday afternoon.
Here are some takeaways…
– Jazz Chisholm Jr. got the scoring started with a solo shot in the bottom of the second off Luis Severino. Jazz was smooth again just one inning later, as he ripped a three-run triple into the right-center gap, blowing the game wide open at 4-0.
Chisholm was on base three times on the day with the pair of extra-base knocks and a walk.
– The Yanks would add on again against their former teammate in the bottom of the fourth, as Aaron Judge crushed a two-run shot deep into left field seats. Judge struck again later in the contest, launching another two-run shot in the seventh, this time off of right-hander Tyler Ferguson.
Judge now has five straight seasons with 30+ homers and he’s the second player to reach that mark this year.
– Cody Bellinger got in on the fun as well, cracking a three-run shot to right-center in the fifth as part of a three-hit afternoon. The sweet-swinging lefty now has knocks in nine of his last 10 games and he has two homers and six RBI over that span. – It was a rough go for Severino against his former team, as he allowed six earned runs (seven total) on five hits, three strikeouts and three walks over just 3.2 innings of work. The veteran right-hander now has a 5.18 ERA during his first season with the A’s.
– Marcus Stroman was hit by a line drive off Max Muncy’s bat in the top of the second, but he was able to stay in the game after talking to the training staff. Making his first start since April 11 (knee inflammation), the right-hander held the A’s offense to just one run on three hits and two walks in five innings.
– JT Brubaker struggled in just his fourth outing of the season, as he was unable to work through the sixth inning and allowed the A’s to creep their way back in. He recorded just one out before being pulled — allowing four runs on two hits and three walks.
– The rest of the Yankees’ bullpen was able to get the job done behind him — Jonathan Loaisiga, Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton, and Luke Weaver combined to allow just one baserunner to reach via walk while striking out four over the final 3.2 innings of work.
– New York pushed their lead over the Rays in the AL East back up to 1.5 games.
Game MVP: Aaron Judge
The captain reached base three times, including his 29th and 30th homers of the season.
Stroman threw 74 pitches, 42 for strikes, and walked two batters. The lone run he allowed came on a Willie MacIver home run in the fifth inning, leaving an 87.4 mph sinker up in the strike zone after a 10-pitch battle.
“I thought he was terrific,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after the game. “A little bit unknown going out there with his build-up and everything, coming off a tough one [in his last minor-league rehab start]. I thought he got after it really good.”
“Got pitches where he needed to, I thought he had a presence on both sides of the plate,” he continued. “He was a little unpredictable, used his sinker, used his cutter and the different kind of breaking balls.”
Manager Aaron Boone with @M_Marakovits & the media following today’s victory.
Stroman made his first start since April 11, after which he went on the injured list with left knee inflammation. Prior to that, he didn’t pitch well in his first three appearances of the season, accumulating an 11.57 ERA with 12 hits and seven walks in 9 1/3 innings.
He suffered a setback with discomfort in the knee while throwing batting practice on May 9, which delayed a minor-league rehab assignment until June 11. Stroman didn’t pitch particularly well in three rehab starts, compiling a 6.97 ERA. That raised some concern as to how he might perform upon returning to the Yankees’ rotation. But Sunday’s outing may have eased any anxieties there.
Though he didn’t need the help, Stroman received plenty of run support from his lineup, scoring six runs versus Athletics starter Luis Severino.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. provided the early offense with a second-inning home run and two-run triple in the third. Aaron Judge added two more runs in the fourth with his 29th homer of the season. And Cody Bellinger hit a three-run shot to give the Yankees a 10-1 lead when Stroman was finished.
The Athletics roughed up reliever JT Brubaker in the sixth, putting four consecutive runners on base and scoring two runs. Brubaker helped out by hitting Max Muncy and walking Tyler Soderstrom, followed by the Athletics adding two more runs on RBI groundouts from Luis Urías and Denzel Clarke.
Brubaker lasted only one-third of an inning, allowing four runs with three walks and two hits.
However, the Yankees had too big a lead to overcome. Bellinger finished 3-for-5 with three RBI and Chisholm batted 2-for-3, driving in four runs. He also made several nice defensive plays at third base. Judge added his 30th homer in the eighth inning, going 2-for-4 with four RBI. He’s now two behind MLB leader Cal Raleigh in homers as the All-Star break approaches.
The Utah Jazz just completed a curious trade, sending high-volume scorer Collin Sexton and a 2030 second-round selection to the Charlotte Hornets for the modest return of Jusuf Nurkić.
This is largely confusing and could be the first step in a series of moves for the Jazz.
Or … they could just have made a trade that makes very little sense. Guess we’ll find out.
Onto the grades we go!
Jazz get bigger and perhaps clear opportunities for Ace Bailey
Let’s get one thing out of the way. Sexton is a better player than Nurkić and not by an insignificant margin. For the Jazz to send out a pick sweetener seems backward, especially when you consider Sexton’s contract is just $18.9 million and expires next summer, same as Nurkić’s.
So this isn’t even a cap-clearing move. If anything, the Jazz actually take on money, as Nurkić sits at just under $19.4 million.
So the Jazz took on more money, sent out a pick and also gave away the best player in the deal?
There can only be a few explanations for that, and the first centers around Ace Bailey, the fifth overall pick in this week’s NBA Draft.
Bailey is a high-volume shot-taker, a description that also fits Sexton. By removing Sexton from the equation, the Jazz could be leaning into the Bailey experience by offering him a healthy diet of shots right from the jump.
That doesn’t quite explain why they’d gift-wrap Sexton to the Hornets. Not unless they’re bringing in a center in order to move another, such as Walker Kessler.
Why would Kessler potentially be on the move? One theory could be the Lakers having interest and perhaps they’ve offered an attractive package for the 23-year-old.
We don’t know whether that’s in the cards, but surely we can’t rule out such a theory, especially given the aforementioned trade package they relinquished for Nurkić, who tends to fall out of the rotation with most teams.
Grade: Incomplete.
Something here doesn’t pass the smell test, and presumably the Jazz have something else lined up. If this is the totality of what they’re trying to achieve, then we’re looking at a failing grade.
For Charlotte’s side, it all makes sense
Sure, the Hornets just shipped out Nurkić and Mark Williams within a week, meaning they don’t have a ton of center depth.
But they also had another problem.
LaMelo Ball hasn’t exactly been the pillar of availability in recent years, and Sexton is one hell of an insurance policy.
The 26-year-old is a career 18.8-point scorer who has sported a true-shooting percentage of 60.4 during his Jazz tenure.
He’s a rock-solid reliable scoring option who offers significant efficiency on high volume. If Ball goes down again, the Hornets can easily ask Sexton to absorb the extra offensive responsibility.
And they got a pick on top of that, while sending out Nurkić, who couldn’t even break 20 minutes per game for them.
That’s a slam dunk.
Grade: A+
Whether they got offered this out of thin air or negotiated this over the course of months, the Hornets agreed to terms that overwhelmingly favor them.
The Charlotte Hornets are trading center Jusuf Nurkic to Utah Jazz for guard Collin Sexton and a second-round draft pick in 2031, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports.
With Sexton, the Hornets add another perimeter scorer to a roster that already features LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller and newly drafted forward Kon Knueppel, whom they selected out of Duke with the No. 4 pick in last week’s draft. Sexton projects to come off the bench behind Ball and Miller and provide the Hornets with a secondary playmaker to the oft-injured Ball.
The trade will leave Charlotte thin in the post after the Hornets traded center Mark Williams to the Phoenix Suns on draft night. The deal could open a path to minutes for second-round rookie center Ryan Kalkbrenner, who was drafted last week with the No. 34 pick.
Nurkic joins a Jazz team that features rising fourth-year pro Walker Kessler as its starting center. Nurkic played just 26 games in Charlotte after arriving to the Hornets prior to the in-season trade deadline from the Suns.
Sexton, 26, averaged 18.4 points and 4.2 assists last season while shooting 48% from the floor and 40.6% from 3-point distance in 63 games, including 61 starts. Nurkic averaged 8.9 points and 7.8 rebounds per game while shooting 47.7% from the floor and 30.5% from 3 in 51 games with the Hornets and Suns, 32 of which were starts.
Both players are playing on expiring contracts. Sexton is due $19 million in 2025-26 and will become a free agent the following offseason without a new deal. Nurkic is due $19.4 million on the final season of his contract.
