{"id":26630,"date":"2019-10-24T22:18:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T02:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=26630"},"modified":"2019-10-24T22:18:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T02:18:58","slug":"suns-deandre-ayton-faces-25-game-suspension-for-violating-nbas-anti-drug-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2019\/10\/24\/suns-deandre-ayton-faces-25-game-suspension-for-violating-nbas-anti-drug-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns Deandre Ayton Faces 25-Game Suspension for Violating NBA&#8217;s Anti-Drug Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/phoenix-suns\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Phoenix Suns<\/a> center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/aytonde01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Deandre Ayton<\/strong><\/a> faces a 25-game suspension for violating the NBA&#8217;s Anti-Drug Policy. Ayton, 21, was the first overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Suns Deandre Ayton Suspended for 25 Games for Violating NBA&#8217;s Anti-Drug Policy\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h2><strong>Adrian Wojnarowski Report<\/strong><\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Suns center Deandre Ayton is facing a 25-game suspension for violating NBA\u2019s Anti-Drug policy with a positive test for a diuretic, league sources tell ESPN. The NBA informed Ayton and Suns of looming suspension tonight.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/1187532783985541120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 25, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to ESPN&#8217;s Adrian Wojnarowski, Ayton is facing a 25-game suspension for violating the league&#8217;s anti-drug policy. Players must submit drug tests periodically throughout the season. Ayton&#8217;s test came back positive for a banned diuretic. Diuretics are thinning agents, which are used to mask potential drug use in professional athletes.<\/p>\n<p>Wojnarowski also reported that the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) will conduct an &#8220;arbitration&#8221; process to further look into the situation.<\/p>\n<p>In Ayton&#8217;s first season with the Suns, he averaged 16.3 points and 10.3 rebounds, shooting 59 percent from the field. He played well in the Suns&#8217; first game against the Sacramento Kings, scoring 18 points and 11 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>Deandre Ayton released the following statement, Per Adrian Wojnarowski: \u201cI want to apologize to my family, the entire Suns organization, my teammates, partners, our fans and the Phoenix community. This was an unintentional mistake and unfortunately, I put something in my body that I was completely unaware of. I do understand the unfortunate impact that this has on so many others, and for that, I am deeply sorry. I\u2019m extremely disappointed that I\u2019ve let my team down. I will continue to work with the NBPA to go through arbitration and am hopeful of a positive resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Suns Lineup Moving Forward\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>With Ayton out for a good chunk of the season, the Suns now have to figure out a solution to still keep the team intact and ready to go for future games.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baynear01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Aron Baynes<\/strong> <\/a>is the top candidate to replace Ayton in the starting lineup. Before being acquired by the Suns, Baynes played for the Boston Celtics, where he played 51 games, averaging 5 points, shooting 40 percent from the field. Of course, now that Ayton will out of the rotation for a while, Baynes will get more playing time, which hopefully increases in his numbers. Center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kaminfr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Frank Kaminsky<\/strong><\/a> is also a candidate for playing at the five spot. If the Suns can find a solution to fill up the five spot, they make better progress in the season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"WqXJRoO-QIFUMWKtTMvofg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1084329722\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'WqXJRoO-QIFUMWKtTMvofg',sig:'YND6zLq6oAA6MjZIzDi3uoXHT7f0eE3sQxv6BuF-3VQ=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1084329722',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phoenix Suns center Deandre Ayton faces a 25-game suspension for violating the NBA&#8217;s Anti-Drug Policy. Ayton, 21, was the first overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. Suns Deandre Ayton Suspended for 25 Games for Violating NBA&#8217;s Anti-Drug Policy\u00a0 Adrian Wojnarowski Report Suns center Deandre Ayton is facing a 25-game suspension for violating NBA\u2019s Anti-Drug [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2853,"featured_media":26637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,28],"tags":[1419,280],"class_list":["post-26630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-suns","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-phoenix-suns"],"modified_by":"Jared Woodcock, Associate Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}