ClutchPoints: “Switching back to #25 .. have a blessed day .. sorry for the ones that bought #1 jerseys already😓” Mikal Bridges to Knicks fans after announcing that he’s changing his jersey number 😭 pic.twitter.com/bzBqK03KVN
Mikal Bridges Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: F-G
Born: 08/30/96
Height: 6-6 / 1.98
Weight:209 lbs. / 94.8 kg.
Salary: $23,300,000
Scouting report
Born: 08/30/96
Height: 6-6 / 1.98
Weight:209 lbs. / 94.8 kg.
Salary: $23,300,000
Scouting report
5d
Nets 'were always prepared for a rebuild' before Mikal Bridges trade
Though Marks said the Bridges final deal came together quickly — technically true since Bojan Bogdanovic and Shake Milton weren’t even Knicks until Feb. 8 and March 5 — a second source told The Post the broad strokes had been offered as early as the Feb. 8 trade deadline. That likely means the five first-round picks and a swap. “We were always prepared for a rebuild. It wasn’t like, oh, let’s wait to be lucky to find the star that’s coming into free agency. We were always prepared to pivot in the other direction if we could see the right opportunity to do that,” a source said. “And who would’ve thought we could trade Mikal Bridges for five first-round draft picks? And who would’ve thought we were able to find that window of opportunity to get Houston to agree to get our picks back?
Through that point, Brooklyn had leaned toward trying to add an All-Star running mate for Bridges, but their underachieving season forced a hard look in the mirror. “Is this the right time to go and chase a big star to get us into the top three seeds in the Eastern Conference? It’s just a matter of opportunity,” the source told The Post. “When we see that our team last year performed below expectations — and it’s something that everybody was just disappointed in — then we asked ourselves can we add pieces that will make us much better? The answer was, well, it’ll just depend on what happens, who’s available.”
Nets GM Sean Marks has only spoken publicly once since the team traded Mikal Bridges, and team owner Joe Tsai not at all. But multiple highly placed sources peeled the curtain back on Brooklyn’s thinking, explaining its heel turn from chasing stars to embracing a rebuild as all part of game theory. “[The view had been] that if you’re in New York City, you can’t be a bad team, because the fan base is not going to support you. It’s such a big media market, if you’re a terrible team, everything gets very bad,” one source told The Post of the organization’s initial aversion to a rebuild. “But you also have to think about the long term. You cannot be a mediocre team for a long time. So you have to set yourself up to either be really good, and if you only see a path to be just mediocre in the near term, then you have to consider an option that can take you to a rebuild.”
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Cam Thomas on multiple superstars leaving: We gotta follow Sean Marks lead and try our best
You’ve seen James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and Mikal Bridges traded within less than three seasons. What has it been like adjusting on the fly through all these transactions? Thomas: “I’m kinda used to it at this point, all this crazy stuff that’s been going on my first three years. It’s been crazy, but it’s just part of the business, like everybody says. You can’t really put your feelings into it or dwell on it. This is where [general manager] Sean [Marks] thinks we should go, so we gotta follow his lead and try to put the best product on the floor. We’re gonna try to do that.”
The Mikal Bridges trade sent the Nets in a new direction. What are your expectations for your role this season? Do you think it changes? Thomas: “I wouldn’t say it changes, but [there will] probably be more of an emphasis on what I’m supposed to do, you know, scoring the ball and playmaking for the guys. So I wouldn’t necessarily say it changes what I do, because I’ve been doing the same thing since I’ve been here. I’ll probably just take it to a different level, for sure.”
Ian Begley: One note on Miles McBride: I don’t think Knicks signing Cam Payne is a direct reflection of how they view McBride. They had no interest in including McBride in Mikal Bridges deal & have said this offseason that they view McBride as an off-ball guard who can also handle the ball
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