Sunday, December 22, 2024

Sources: Knicks to acquire Bridges from Nets

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The New York Knicks have agreed to a trade that will see them acquire Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on Tuesday.

The Knicks will send Bojan Bogdanovic, four unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027, 2029, 2031), a 2025 protected first-rounder via the Milwaukee Bucks, a 2028 unprotected pick swap and a 2025 second-rounder to the Nets, sources said.

The Knicks also will acquire a 2026 second-round pick from the Nets to complete the deal.

Bridges now joins a New York team that reached the Eastern Conference semifinals this past season, losing to the Indiana Pacers in seven games. And he’ll link up with former Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo in New York; they won an NCAA title together with the Wildcats in 2016 (Brunson, Bridges and DiVincenzo won a second title together in 2018).

“This is crazy lol,” Bridges wrote on social media.

The Knicks remain determined to keep OG Anunoby in free agency, sources told Wojnarowski, as they load up on wings to match up with the NBA champion Boston Celtics. But their bid to re-sign center Isaiah Hartenstein becomes more difficult now.

Bridges played his first four full seasons with the Phoenix Suns, who then traded him to the Nets as part of the four-team blockbuster centered around Kevin Durant in February 2023.

He starred for Brooklyn after that trade, averaging 26.1 points in 27 games the remainder of the 2022-23 season. But his numbers dipped as the Nets’ primary creator last season, as he averaged 19.6 points in 82 games.

The 27-year-old Bridges has played 474 straight games to begin his career, the longest streak in the NBA over the past 40 seasons. He’s one of four players with 1,500 points, 150 3-pointers and 75 steals in each of the past two seasons, joining Luka Doncic, Anthony Edwards and Jayson Tatum.

Defensively, 50 players have contested at least 2,500 shots in the past three seasons. Bridges has allowed 42.9% shooting as the contesting defender during that span, the fifth-best mark of that group, per Second Spectrum.

Bridges is owed $23.3 million and $24.9 million over the final two years of his current contract. He is eligible to sign a two-year extension on Oct. 1, and can extend for an additional three years, $113 million in six months.

The deal is the first between the teams since June 1983, when the Nets traded Len Elmore to the Knicks for a 1984 second-round pick (41st overall, used on Tom Sluby).

Information from ESPN Stats & Information and ESPN’s Bobby Marks was used in this report.

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