According to an NBA press release, former 2022–23 Los Angeles Lakers centre Tristan Thompson, who is currently with the Cleveland Cavaliers, faces an immediate 25-game suspension after testing positive for two prohibited drugs.

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.

On the last day of the 2022–23 regular season, Thompson (together with Shaquille Harrison) inked a contract with the Lakers as backup players in case of an emergency ahead of LA’s postseason run. Before that, Thompson had not dressed up for anybody throughout the regular season.

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 defence 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 favoured rotation, and Wood has given Thompson a shooting dimension that Thompson was never able to match.