The Brooklyn Nets underwent two massive franchise shakeups in three seasons. They were a Kevin Durant toe away from making the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021 after building a team around the trio of Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden. That group was blown up shortly after, and when KD was traded to Phoenix, Mikal Bridges ended up as the Nets’ default franchise player.
Bridges, though, was one of the NBA’s most pleasant surprises after landing in Brooklyn at the trade deadline in 2023. He went from being a spot-up shooter with the Suns to the No. 1 offensive option with the Nets where his scoring jumped from 17.2 points per game to 26.1.
Since then, Brooklyn has turned down multiple trade offers for the 27-year-old, including a rumored offer from the Houston Rockets that included four first-round picks.
With the team only winning 32 games last year and no star outside of Bridges – who may be better suited as a secondary option, anyway – the Nets are stuck in NBA purgatory.
The best way to make a change would be to deal Bridges for one of those massive packages, but Brooklyn seems to have no desire to make that sort of drastic alteration.
Brooklyn Nets have no interest in trading Mikal Bridges
Per Fred Katz of The Athletic, Brooklyn plans to continue turning down all overtures and hold onto their star wing:
The Nets have expressed zero interest in trading Bridges, according to league sources who have been in contact with them — and it’s not like they haven’t had opportunities. … According to league sources, Brooklyn’s front office has told teams it views Bridges as a costar to whichever big name it can trade for down the line. That’s the organization’s long-term plan.
Katz also writes what everyone in NBA circles knows: Bridges is not a No. 1 option. The Nets already know he’s a costar, not a star…yet they’re not willing to move him for a massive haul of draft picks and/or young players that could help reset the franchise.
In his offseason guide for all 28 eliminated teams, ESPN’s Bobby Marks writes that Brooklyn is “searching for an identity, stuck somewhere between a rebuild and a retool.”
If there’s anywhere you don’t want to be as an NBA franchise, it’s that exact position. Not good enough to win, not bad enough to lose.
Moving Bridges would give the Nets a chance at being the latter. Taking the future picks they got from Phoenix, packaging them with Ben Simmons’ expiring contract and a young player like Cam Thomas could give them a shot at the former.
But simply standing pat and holding onto Bridges in the hopes of acquiring a potentially available star accomplishes nothing for Brooklyn. The franchise needs to make a decision and move in one direction or the other.
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