NBA insider predicts wild Knicks-Nets trade to complete Villanova core

The New York Knicks captured the hearts of New York basketball fans everywhere with their best season in over a decade, winning 50 games and taking the Indiana Pacers to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. There's a good chance that the Knicks would've made their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance since the 1999-00 season had virtually their entire team not gone down with injury.

The Knicks were led by Jalen Brunson who has ascended into borderline superstar status. Surrounding Brunson were some of the best role players in the league including Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo, two players who happened to go to Villanova University with Brunson.

The "Nova Knicks" took the NBA by storm and have established themselves as legitimate threats in the Eastern Conference. According to NBA insider Bill Simmons, they could be looking to complete their Villanova core by adding a fourth member of the 2016 champions in an offseason trade with the Brooklyn Nets.

Mikal Bridges could be missing piece for "Nova Knicks"

Simmons says that the Knicks want him and that they'll overpay. While it's good for the Knicks to want things, it's really hard to envision this happening for several reasons.

First, for better or for worse, Brooklyn has shown absolutely no interest in trading Mikal Bridges, the team's best and most valuable player. They reportedly turned down an offer of four first-round picks for Bridges after trading for him last season. They reportedly turned down an offer to get control of their own draft picks back from the Houston Rockets at this year's trade deadline. They remain committed to building a contender around Bridges. Whether that's smart or not can be debated, but their commitment to Bridges cannot.

Can the Knicks overpay? Absolutely. They have the assets to make this work. However, overpaying means topping these kinds of offers that the Nets have already refused. Would the Knicks really part with the money to make the deal work and a boatload of draft picks for another 3-and-D wing? It's not like Bridges has proven he can be the second option that New York desperately needs to take the pressure off of Brunson.

Now that we've established the unlikeliness of the Knicks offering an absurd haul for a player who might not even make them favorites to win the Eastern Conference, let's talk about the fact that these teams do not like each other. These franchises have not made a trade since the 1983 campaign, over 40 years ago, according to Basketball Reference.

Simmons is assuming that the Nets would willingly send Bridges, their best player, to their crosstown rivals to reunite with his buddies on a team that looked like the second-best team in the Eastern Conference all season. He's assuming that a haul of draft picks that the Nets do not control would be enough for Joe Tsai and Sean Marks to send Bridges to the Knicks while sending the Nets into further purgatory. Is that really the trade they'll want to make with the franchise they haven't dealt with since moving to Brooklyn?

Bridges on the Knicks would be a lot of fun. Adding a fourth member to the Villanova core would make the vibes immaculate. Still, would the Knicks really be willing to overpay while also almost certainly having to pay a "Knicks tax?" Would the Nets really be willing to send him to the Knicks when they could simply trade him to Houston for their own picks and properly rebuild? Have the Nets shown any willingness to trade Bridges at all?

It's good for Simmons and Knick fans to want things. Bridges should be somewhere competing in the playoffs, and there's a good chance he won't be able to do that in Brooklyn barring a surprise Donovan Mitchell trade. Unfortunately, it simply isn't happening.