Serge Ibaka suspended by the Raptors for tonight’s game vs. the Hawks

Here’s the kind of news you don’t want to read after the Raptors lose two games in a row in disappointing fashion. From an official press release: Serge Ibaka is suspended for one game (tonight’s vs. Atlanta) due to an “altercation” with a Raptors staff member.

The press release:

As you can imagine, details are extremely scarce right now. (The Raptors wouldn’t let us see their recently revealed fourth jersey for goodness sakes; there is no way we’re getting any more details on this right now.)

The obvious point of comparison (and worst case scenario) here is the situation from last season in February (in Toronto!) involving Blake Griffin and a Clippers staffer. In that case, everyone kept their jobs — but not their heads — and Griffin ended up missing a chunk of time from a broken hand. Obviously, no injury reports have emerged here, and it sounds like everything has calmed down between Serge and the anonymous staffer — but we don’t actually know the details.

UPDATE: And as expected, we won’t be getting any more updates from head coach Dwane Casey about the situation. Here he is pre-game:

“Masai [Ujiri]’s statement is self-explanatory, it’s a disagreement, altercation, whatever you want to call it. It’s already been resolved. We met about it, both guys, apologized to each other, and again those things happen in the course of living together for six to eight months. And again, we have limits in our culture, how we want to live within our team, how we want to treat people, and it went over the limit.”

We’ll have more as (or, if) news makes itself available. All I feel comfortable saying at the moment is: not good!