The New York Knicks made a pair of trades this offseason that completely flipped the shape of the roster. It started when they sent five first-round picks away to acquire Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets.
ESPN analyst says Knicks overpaid for Mikal Bridges
While Bridges is not having a bad season by any means, it is certainly not at the production that would be worth that much draft capital. He is averaging 18 points per game on 49.9% shooting from the floor and 35.2% from three.
He has started to find his groove lately, which is a good thing considering how close the playoffs are, but his overall season has been up and down on both ends. ESPN NBA analyst Zach Kram gave an interesting take on the trade, deeming it an overpay.
“It was a similar cost that other teams had recently paid in deals for Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert,” Kram said. “But Durant, Mitchell and Gobert were all perennial All-Stars, while Bridges had never been one of the top dozen players in his conference. Role players shouldn’t cost a handful of first-round picks.”
The Knicks will hope that the trade gets them closer to a championship
The trade was met with a lot of criticism in the immediate aftermath given the lofty price for a player who has never made an all-star team. He wasn’t the only player that fans across the league felt as though the Knicks overvalued, as they handed another non-all-star a large contract, giving OG Anunoby a five-year, $212 million contract.
The idea of the Bridges trade was to make the Knicks a strong matchup for the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers, but so far that has not come to fruition. The Knicks are 0-5 against those two teams this season and none of those games have been relatively close.
There’s still time for Bridges to settle in and make a huge impact, but if it results in no championships for New York, it could be a trade they look back on and possibly regret making.