When the Knicks traded five future first-round picks to the crosstown rival Brooklyn Nets for Mikal Bridges, the immediate reactions were mixed. Some fans and analysts were impressed by the addition, citing his proficiency from deep, his excellent screen navigation as a point of attack defender, and his durability. Others thought that it was an overpay for a player who was coming off a down year in which both his shooting, and defense took a step back.
After 24 games, the trade remains an overpay. And in a vacuum, it will very likely remain that way.
It’s unwise to trade that many picks for anyone, let alone a player who hasn’t even made an All-Star game and probably never will. But as Josh Hart alluded to a couple weeks ago, if the Knicks eventually win a championship, nobody will care and the trade will be worth it. And as of late, Mikal Bridges has been doing more and more to help get the Knicks closer to that championship.
After a very ugly start that had the overwhelming majority of Knicks fans incredibly worried, Bridges seems to have turned the corner. He’s yet to become the best version of the player the Knicks and their fans hoped they'd get. The defense isn’t what it once was in Phoenix, the three-point shooting above the break is still inconsistent, and the lack of creation is a bit frustrating. But over his last seven games, Bridges is averaging 20 PPG, 3.1R PG, 3 APG, and 1.1 SPG while shooting 51.4% from the field and 42.9% from three.
If that is too small of a sample size for you, look at his last 14 games, which cover more than half the season to date. During that span, he’s averaging 18.1 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 3.4 APG, and 0.9 SPG while shooting 48.1% from the field, and 36.6% from three. And after scoring 19 or more points just twice through his first 10 games, he’s done so nine times over his last 14, and over that stretch, he has six games of at least three made three-pointers, including a 31-point game in which he made seven.
Let’s not just look at the counting stats and percentages, though. Remember when all the talk surrounding OG Anunoby when he first arrived was about his historic plus/minus numbers? Well, so far this season, it’s actually Bridges--and not Anunoby--who leads the team in plus/minus with a +163, which is slightly ahead of Anunoby's +154.
Over the last 14 games, Bridges’ lead in that category is even more astounding. Over that stretch, he is at +177 while Karl-Anthony Towns is second at +125, and Anunoby is third at +91.
How about the narrative-driven criticisms? Critics said that he was only playing well at home. That was true at one point, but he had a 20-point game in Dallas on November 27th and is coming off a 23-point outing on the road at Toronto.
How about the talk that recently popped up nitpicking his inability to hit big shots that turn the momentum of the game? Well, he hit a few in last night’s win against the Raptors. He hit a three from the right corner in the third quarter to cut the lead to one.
Then hit an above the break three to tie it with 10:14 left in the game.
He then hit another right corner three, this time on the move, to give them a two-point lead with Jalen Brunson still on the bench.
And then hit a huge three from the left corner to put them up two with 1:37 left.
As someone that urged fans to not overreact to the first few weeks of the season, I have to preach the same thing with Bridges’ play as of late as it’s only fair to do so.
I fully understand that the five first-round picks was still an overpay, and that he is just a week and a half removed from an eight-point stinker against the Hornets and still has a lot of room to grow defensively. But he has been significantly better over the last month now and fans need to be as loud about Bridges’ recent good play as they were of his bad play early on.