Trading six first-round picks to acquire Mikal Bridges felt like an insane overpay at the time the New York Knicks made that decision, and a few years later, doing so seems even crazier. Bridges has played the worst basketball of his nine-year career to begin the 2026-27 campaign, totaling 10 points on 5-of-23 shooting from the field (0-for-10 from three) in three games. The Knicks are 0-3 in those games.
The Knicks look nothing like the juggernaut they were last season when they steamrolled their way to an NBA title, and Bridges is a big reason for that. Given how bad things are in Manhattan right now, you'd think suffering Brooklyn Nets fans would have a reason to celebrate, especially knowing their team owns the rights to the Knicks' first-round pick this season. Unfortunately, Brooklyn fans can't even fully enjoy the struggles of the former Net and their crosstown rivals right now.
Does it even matter that Mikal Bridges and the Knicks are off to slow starts?
Is the start of the Bridges' season hilarious from a Nets' point of view? Sure. Six first-round picks for a player with 10 total points in three games is laughably bad, and the Knicks being 0-3 makes Bridges' struggles even sweeter. Who cares, though? I mean, we're three games in. Remember last season when the Chicago Bulls were 5-0? What happened after that? Even last year, Bridges got off to a great start but the Knicks were just 2-3 through their first five games.
Three regular season games out of 82 mean very little, in the grand scheme of things. Does anyone really expect Bridges, one of the best 3-and-D players in the league, to go the whole season without making a single three-pointer? Does anyone really expect the Knicks, the defending champions, to play this poorly? They might not win another title, but does anyone really expect them to not make the playoffs?
The fact of the matter is that Bridges, even if he might not have been worth the picks, will be fine. The Knicks, even if they won't win a title, will also be fine. Most importantly, though, the Knicks and Bridges won a title last season. Nothing, from their perspective, really matters anymore in regard to this deal. They've already won. The Nets had a chance to be winners too, given the haul they received, but they're in a brutal spot.
The Nets might be the only bigger disaster than the Knicks right now
Like the Knicks, the Nets are 0-3, but let's dive into Brooklyn's losses. They lost their season opener at home to a Charlotte Hornets team that traded LaMelo Ball in the offseason and was without Kon Knueppel and Coby White. They then were blown out for much of their second game of the year in Cleveland (although they did make things rather interesting late in the fourth quarter), and proceeded to lose by 27 points at home to the Pacers on Sunday.
The Nets' offense has looked out of sync, and their defense has allowed roughly 124 points per game. The Nets weren't expected to win a title this season or anything, but they did trade for Julius Randle to pair alongside Michael Porter Jr. and they seemingly had several intriguing young players worth monitoring. Again, a three-game sample isn't massive, but virtually nobody is playing well right now, which is alarming for a team that doesn't even have its own first-round pick.
And to take it a step further, the rookies they've received from the Bridges trade haven't done much of anything. Nolan Traore began the year in Brooklyn's rotation and looked good on Sunday, but was also limited to just five minutes in Saturday's game. He's barely hanging onto a rotation spot, while Ben Saraf was just sent down to the G League. These guys still have time to amount to something, and there're four first-rounders to go, but so far, the returns have not been good.
So to sum up, the Knicks won a title with Bridges playing a key role, so even while this season hasn't been great, at least they have that to lean on, while the Nets have gotten no value from the Bridges deal thus far and are off to a dreadful start in a year in which they're trying to be competitive. Not great!
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