Lakers News: 2023 LA Role Player Suspended 25 Games For Using Banned Substances

According to an NBA press release, former 2022–23 Los Angeles Lakers center Tristan Thompson, who is currently with the Cleveland Cavaliers, faces an immediate 25-game suspension after testing positive for two prohibited substances.
The league’s official list of “steroids and performance-enhancing drugs” included the 6’9″ big man, who tested positive for the banned substances ibutamoren and SARM LGD-4033.

After not suiting up for anyone during the 2022-23 regular season, Thompson (and Shaquille Harrison) signed a deal with the Lakers on the last day of that regular season, as break-glass-in-case-of-emergency additions for LA’s playoff run.

Through the first two rounds of the playoffs, Thompson was essentially the Lakers’ 14th man, relegated to mop-up duty. However, he later showed signs of life in LA’s Western Conference Finals series against Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, playing physical defense and leapfrogging over Wenyen Gabriel and Mo Bamba in Darvin Ham’s shortened rotation.

In the 2023 summer, he then inked a minimum contract with the Cavaliers, as the Lakers decided to take a more youthful approach by signing Christian Wood and Jaxson Hayes to veteran’s minimum wages. Darvin Ham no longer uses Hayes in his favored rotation, and Wood has given Thompson a shooting dimension that Thompson was never able to match.