Knicks' Mikal Bridges needs to start showing why the team traded away so much for him
Knicks forward Mikal Bridges reacts after scoring a three-point basket against the Indiana Pacers in the second half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It’s time for Mikal Bridges to step up.
It’s time for him to have a monster weekend — or at the very least a monster game — and quiet all the chatter about how the Knicks got fleeced by the Nets this past summer when they gambled with their future to obtain the kind of shooter and defensive player they thought would help them win now.
As the Knicks head into two straight games against the Nets on Friday and Sunday, the spotlight will be fixed firmly on Bridges. Forget that it’s early in the season. Forget that the Knicks are still working on their chemistry. This is a weekend when conclusions will be drawn, narratives will be written. And right now, there hasn’t been much happening to make one think the Knicks were the winners in this deal.
In all fairness, Bridges hasn’t been an awful player in his first 11 games as a Knick. What he has been is an average player, and an average NBA player is not what you trade four unprotected picks, a pick swap and what now may be an unexpectedly valuable protected 2025 Milwaukee Bucks pick for.
Bridges is averaging 15.6 points per game, fourth-best on the team, and has had only two games in which he’s reached 20 points. More telling is that through the first 11 games, Bridges has averaged more minutes (38.0) than anyone else on the roster but is the only player among the top nine in the rotation to have a negative net rating.
When the Knicks mortgaged the farm for Bridges, the thought was they were getting a strong defensive player who could help spread the floor on offense by knocking down catch-and-shoot three-pointers alongside Jalen Brunson.
While Bridges’ overall 48% shooting is acceptable — he’s pretty successful with those midrange jumpers — his performance from beyond the arc has been a huge disappointment.
Bridges has attempted more three-pointers than anyone else on the team but has made only 30.4% of them. His struggles with his outside shot began in the preseason. While he has had a couple of games here and there in which his shot has fallen, he heads into Friday’s game 1-for-12 in his last three games and 6-for-30 in his last five.
Bridges’ defensive performance — most notably his problems navigating through screens — has been a concern. So is his tendency not to get back all that quickly after missing a shot on offense. His struggles at that end of the court are particularly perplexing considering that only three seasons ago with the Suns, he was the runner-up in the Defensive Player of the Year voting.
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the no-star Nets are playing better than anyone would have imagined. Projected by most bookmakers to finish the season with fewer than 20 wins, the 5-7 Nets are just a half-game behind the 5-6 Knicks, who entered the season looking to contend for an NBA title.
Somehow the Nets traded away their best player and became a better team. Who would have thought?
So much of the NBA today is about chemistry and putting the right pieces together. The Knicks had great chemistry last season but likely went as far as they were going to go with the pieces they had.
Brunson plays the sort of style that is going to take a toll on his body, so the window for winning was finite and the Knicks believed they needed to go all-in.
Trading for Bridges made it possible to trade Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle for Karl-Anthony Towns. And while Towns certainly could improve his rim protection, watching him drop 46 points — even in a bad loss to Chicago— is at least fairly entertaining and has to give fans some hope for what this team could be.
With a scoring force in Towns, a superior point guard in Brunson and versatile starters OG Anunoby and Josh Hart, the Knicks ought to be able to figure this thing out. It sure would help if Bridges would start knocking down some outside shots and look as all-in as the rest of the starters.
This weekend would be a perfect time to step up.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.