Well then, the Villanova Knicks are complete with the deal of the Brooklyn Nets sending Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks. This is the first trade the two franchises have made since 1983 and boy is it a big one. Bridges heads from Brooklyn to Manhattan for Bojan Bogdanovic, unprotected first round picks in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031, a 2025 protected first round pick from the Bucks and a pick swap in 2028. The Nets then made a deal with the Rockets to bring back their own first round picks in 2025 and 2026, sending out most of the picks they got from the Suns. Both are huge trades that change a lot in the NBA landscape.
Let’s start with Bridges to the Knicks. Mikal Bridges is a really good player, he is one of the elite 2-way players in the NBA. His perimeter defense is ferocious, he is a knockdown 3-point shooter and can put the ball on the floor and get to the cup. We know this is going to be a great fit because Bridges was teammates with current Knicks Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo in college so they will already have good on court chemistry. Finally, he has played in 513 consecutive games, including both regular season and playoffs, since being drafted in 2018, he is the NBA’s iron man and for a Knicks team whose entire team got hurt during the playoffs last season, that will help. He makes the Knicks better. They need to re-sign OG Anunoby but if they do, this is a team that has the wings to at least challenge Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The Celtics are built off of their 2-way wings and the Knicks have picked up 2 elite ones in the span of 6 months. They also get another good decision maker with the basketball in his hands who will now have the opportunity to be the 2nd or 3rd best offensive player on a really good team. Bridges can dribble, pass and shoot, add that with the defense and you can see why the Knicks made this trade.
With that being said, this price is a little too rich for my blood. 5 first round picks and a pick swap is more draft capital than the Celtics got in the Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce trade, it is more than the Trail Blazers got for both Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday and it is more than the Nets got when they traded Kevin Durant. Of course the players Brooklyn and Portland got then were more than what Brooklyn got in this trade but still, this is a monster haul for the Nets. This is the kind of trade you make when you think you can win the championship or are adding one of the 20 best players in the NBA and Mikal Bridges is not that. I just think that the Knicks gave up too much in this trade. You can only make this kind of all-in trade once, and making it for Mikal Bridges is not something I would have done. I know he is friends with a bunch of players on the team from his college days and the power of friendship (also known as good chemistry) can be a huge benefit in basketball but it alone does not win you championships. This is the kind of trade you make when you can win the championship and I’m not sold the Knicks can do that. Does this trade make them better than Boston? I would say no because the Celtics would still have the best player in a series against the Knicks and their top 4 guards and wings of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, to me are better than New York’s top 4 guards and wings. However, there are a lot more moves to be made so let’s look at what else New York can do.
The Knicks main priority has to be to re-sign OG Anunoby. After sending out RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to the Raptors in exchange for Anunoby in December, New York went 14-2 in the month of January before losing Julius Randle for the season. Anunoby totally changed the equation for New York with his defense and 3 point shooting. They need to sign him. The Knicks are hard capped at the first apron right now, which is $178,655,000 due to taking in more salary than they sent out in the Bridges deal. Right now, New York is about $45 million under that point, before signing Anunoby. If the Knicks can make this trade bigger and send out more salary in the deal, they would bump their cap to $189,485,000, a difference of just under $11 million. That is a big deal for a team that has Anunoby and Isaiah Hartenstien as unrestricted free agents and they probably won’t be able to sign both if they keep this deal as is. They could go the route of keeping this team together but I worry about the lack of big behind Mitchell Robinson concerns me. If they lose Anunoby, they’ll likely re-sign Hartenstien, which with what they gave up is a disaster. If they sign Anunoby, they’ll lose Hartenstein and that creates a huge hole at center. They could try and trade Julius Randle for Jarrett Allen, who would give them excellent rim protection and a good pick and roll partner to pair with Jalen Brunson if they keep OG and lose I-Hart but I think I would try and bring in this team next year and maybe draft a backup big. With all these players who play the 2, 3 and 4 so that you can limit everyone’s minutes and then at the trade deadline if you want to move Randle, you do that then.
This deal is a grand slam for the Nets. To get that many draft assets for Mikal Bridges is a huge win. These deals do not usually work out, as the Nets fans know very well and, historically betting against the Knicks is not a bad idea. They also can make more trades including Bojan Bogdanovic, who is a good basketball player. Before his trade to the Knicks in Feburary, in a season and a half with the Pistons, he averaged 21.1 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists on shooting splits of .48/.41/.87. He can be flipped for something else, maybe not a first rounder but a handful of second rounders which everyone wants with these new apron rules. Getting their own picks in 2025 and 2026 back is a huge part of this win for Brooklyn. Tanking without your own picks and betting on other teams being bad is not a fun place to be, the Nets know this because they were in that spot just under a decade ago. However, by sending the Suns 2027 first round pick, a 2029 first round pick, and pick swaps in 2025 and 2029 to the Rockets, they were able to get their own 2025 and 2026 first round picks back. That is huge because now they can tank and get high picks in what are believed to be two elite drafts. They can now trade Cam Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith who will both likely fetch a first round pick back for them, as teams like Sacramento, Dallas, Miami, Memphis and others will make real offers to get those guys on their roster. There are a few Nets fans who are freaking out about giving the Knicks the last piece they need for a championship but that cannot be a concern for the Nets, you have to take the best offer and that is what the Knicks offer was. This is a huge win for Brooklyn, they needed to blow it all up and now with control of all of their draft picks aside from 2027, they can now fully commit to the tank.
The Houston Rockets also were a part of this. We talked about the deal they made but why did they make it? Well for one, Brooklyn likely was not trading Bridges without their picks back, they might have even gone the other way and traded for someone so the Nets picks would not have been as valuable. Secondly, they want one of the Suns stars, in Kevin Durant or Devin Booker. The hope is that if you take these picks and send them back to the Suns they’ll give you Durant or Booker. However, that seems unlikely as the Suns are not going to trade Booker under any circumstance and are very unlikely to move Durant, but this is definitely a team who wants to make a big splash. Paul George and Jimmy Butler are the most common names coming up but I wouldn’t do that if I was Houston. The Rockets made this trade to set themselves up for a huge trade to add a real number 1 option on a really good team, so do not be surprised when that happens.
The Knicks traded for Mikal Bridges and it worries me. I understand the fit, that Bridges is a really good player and how he plays every single night, I am just nervous about this for the Knicks. This is a lot of picks to trade for a player like Bridges who is not going to be the best player on a championship team so he needs to be the piece that pushes you over the top, the piece that puts you in the top tier of title contenders and I just do not think that this does that.
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