Mikal Bridges/Almost Everything The Knicks Have/Houston Rockets Stuff Too trade grades
Adjudicating two intertwined, fascinating deals
You know how when you’re slipping into sleep, your mind starts to pre-dream? I’m sure that’s not the scientific term, but you know what I mean. Your mind untethers from reality and wanders to weird places, readying itself for the ascent to dreamland.
That’s where I was last night, mentally drifting through the light fixtures at Home Depot for some reason (I don’t even need new lights!), when my phone buzzed. Woj had dropped another payload:
This isn’t some clever introduction that loops back from the conclusion in a satisfying way. I just wanted you to understand where I was mentally (a home improvement store, looking at ghostly chandeliers) when the adrenaline surged.
As I wrote just a couple of days ago, grading trades is dumb. This transaction, made in conjunction with another deal between Brooklyn and Houston, won’t have clear winners and losers for years. The ripple effects are still, uh, rippling.
But being dumb never stopped me before! Let’s dive in.
New York Knicks receive: Mikal Bridges, a 2026 second-round pick
Brooklyn Nets receive: So much stuff
Good basketball heavens. I am flabbergasted at the price Mikal Bridges commanded. Had to pinch myself to make sure this wasn’t, in fact, a dream. 5.5 firsts for Mikal Bridges? Four unprotected from the Knicks (every other year starting in ‘25), an additional second-rounder and a protected Bucks first in ‘25, a ‘28 swap, plus an interesting trade chip/shooter in Bojan Bogdanovic? Really?
That is so much stuff for zero-time All-Star Mikal Bridges. The Knicks’ management, led by former agent Leon Rose, have done an expert job of building slowly and meticulously over the last three years. This move was the shocking culmination of that careful asset management, an unexpected bolt of lightning.
Let’s start with Bridges. Bridges made his name as the ultimate 3-and-D-and-a-little-more guy in Phoenix. He was traded to Brooklyn in the Kevin Durant deal, but after a strong finish to his first season in Hipsterville, he underwhelmed last year. He doesn’t have the playmaking or finishing package required to be the top option on a team, and the offensive load dragged down his defense, too.
But Bridges is inarguably one of the best complementary players in the league, an accurate shooter and lockdown defender with some ability to create advantages for himself and others against bent defenses. While I’ve never been quite as high on Bridges’ peak defense as many people, a Bridges/OG Anunoby pairing is the wing version of Boston’s lockdown duo Derrick White and Jrue Holiday. Making up a totally random hypothetical, you couldn’t ask for a better twosome to guard, say, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
Offensively, Bridges has hit 39% of his catch-and-shoot threes each of the last two seasons (and has been better than that in the past, although on too-low volume). He showed far more willingness to launch as the lead dog in Brooklyn, and carrying over that aggressive mindset will be essential to his success in New York.
Bridges’ time in Brooklyn helped him develop skills that will work better in a secondary role, too. He got far more reps as a ballhandler and pick-and-roll orchestrator, where he posted roughly league-average marks as both a finisher and passer. League-average isn’t what you want from your best offensive player (and his passing never took off the way I hoped it would), but his efficiency should scale up as his usage scales down.
Bridges has spent so much time on-ball that it’s easy to forget what an excellent off-ball mover he can be. He has a syncopated, unpredictable movement pattern that lets him create space off screens and on cuts to the basket, as he shows on this pretty dive-and-dish:
His defense should also improve with less offensive weight on his shoulders. Bridges is a mirror, reflecting every movement ballhandlers make while providing no points of ingress to the paint. He’s had some monster defensive games against Steph Curry and Luka Doncic, among many others, and his seven-foot-plus wingspan lets him guard up a position or two in a switching defense.
Passing lanes shrink when Bridges enters the game. His restless hands and clever anticipation result in pick-sixes and deflections galore. He has fantastic help instincts, too, sneaking in right when players turn their backs to bother shots. If you want to see the quintessential Mikal Bridges play, look no further than this block leading to a runout corner three:
The defense wasn’t as consistent in Brooklyn, but he’ll have just turned 28 when the season starts. There’s no reason to expect a physical decline; he should re-engage that part of himself without issue. Even the worst version of Bridges is an above-average defender. The apex version could compete for an All-Defensive nod.
By the end of his tenure in Phoenix, he was one of the league’s most versatile and efficient third bananas on both ends, possessing virtually no weaknesses. I’d expect him to revert to that form in a more suitable offensive role.
Bridges also brings two more valuable bullet points. First, he’s on a dirt-cheap contract (roughly $23M and $25M this coming season and next). In Bridges and Jalen Brunson, the Knicks have two of the best-value contracts in the league. Second, he literally never misses a game. In a league of increasing injuries and load management, Bridges’ iron-man status is huge. Tom Thibodeau has a reputation for running guys into the ground, and there’s always luck involved in injury prevention, but Bridges is as well-equipped to handle the New York workload as anyone. The most critical factor in playoff success is health, and nobody in the league has been healthier than the guy the Knicks just traded for.
Yet, for all that nice talk, I also have serious reservations about this trade.