The Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks have agreed to a trade that will send former All-Defensive member and 20-point scorer Mikal Bridges across the East River, league sources confirmed. Athletic on tuesday.
The Knicks are sending a package that includes Bojan Bogdanovic, four unprotected first-round picks, a protected 2025 first-round pick belonging to the Milwaukee Bucks, a 2028 first-round pick swap and a 2026 second-round pick, sources confirmed. AthleticESPN was first to report the news.
In return, New York finally got an unheralded star it has been waiting for since the current administration took office in 2020.
Not only will Bridges be joining a championship-caliber team that finished with 50 wins, a No. 2 seed and one win away from reaching the Eastern Conference Finals last season, but he’ll also be reuniting with Jalen Brunson, Donte DiVincenzo and Josh Hart as the fourth member of the NovaNics, a quartet of former Villanova University stars who came to Madison Square Garden.
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Mikal Bridges trade assessment: Knicks, Nets, Rockets all wins?
When team president Leon Rose took over as head coach of the Knicks four years ago, his goal was this: retain the franchise’s first-round draft pick, acquire other teams’ picks, build up a tradeable contract and improve year after year. The Bridges trade was the end result of that.
He’ll slide into the starting lineup next season, but the composition of that lineup is unclear. The Knicks’ current starting lineup includes Brunson, DiVincenzo, OG Anunoby, Julius Randle and Isaiah Hartenstein, but Hartenstein and Anunoby both become unrestricted free agents on June 30. For now, their futures are unclear.
There are other players who are committed to the Knicks.
Hart and Miles McBride are in the first season of three-year contract extensions in 2024-25. Mitchell Robinson and Bridges have two years left on their contracts, and the Knicks are set to pay Bridges $23.3 million this season and $24.9 million next season.
Bridges adds a two-way presence to a two-way team.
He was a highly capable role player and All-Defensive worthy member of the Phoenix Suns’ 64-win team in 2022. He developed as an individual scorer in Brooklyn and shouldered a bigger burden after joining the core in the Kevin Durant trade.
His role with the Knicks is likely to be somewhere between the spot-up shooter and cutter he had in Phoenix and the first option role he played on the other side of the bridge.
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Brunson is coming off a season in which he was fourth in the league in scoring and sixth in MVP voting. Randle is a two-time All-NBA selection. Anunoby, if he returns, will be a shot taker but is not a ball-dominant player. He and Bridges would be one of the most fearsome defensive wing duos in the NBA.
Bridges averaged 19.6 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.6 assists on 81 shots, including 44-37 conversion, for Brooklyn last season.
The deal marks a change of direction for the Nets, who have turned down offers for Bridges since acquiring him and are coming off a 50-loss season as they begin a rebuild that includes acquiring draft picks.
The four unprotected first-round picks the Knicks owe the Nets are in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031. Brooklyn also owns three unprotected first-round picks belonging to the Phoenix Suns, another belonging to the Dallas Mavericks, one protected 2027 pick from the Philadelphia 76ers and a 2028 first-round pick swap with the Suns.
The Bridges trade ended a 41-year trade streak — the last time the Knicks and Nets did a trade was in 1983.
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