Recently, the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets completed a blockbuster deal, the Knicks traded 5 first-round picks + Bojan from the Nets in exchange for Mikal Bridges, this deal immediately caused heated discussions as soon as it happened, many people were shocked that the Knicks were so desperate, they thought Bridges was not worth so many draft picks, so what is his current level in the league? Today's star test brings you a summary of Bridges' 2023-24 season.
First of all, a brief introduction to the background of the transaction, the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks are sworn enemies in the same city, it is reported that the Nets management did not initially plan to give Bridges to a competitor, and many teams are interested in getting Bridges, but recently Tsai Chongxin sold the Nets shares to the Koch family in the United States, in order to make the team light and more dynamic, they actively sold the team's stars in exchange for draft picks, plus the New York Knicks gave too much, and finally this deal happened.
Another interesting point is that Bridges and the Knicks' Brunson, DiVincenzo, and Josh Hart are teammates on the Villanova University basketball team, and this class of students is a thunderous history in the NCAA of American universities, and they won two NCAA championships under the leadership of coach Jay Wright in 2016 and 2018 (when Josh Hart joined the NBA), especially in 2016, the team was the dark horse in March Madness, and the No. 1, 2, and 3 seeds in the games. Bridges' 10th pick in the first round was the highest, ranking fourth in the school's history since the school was founded in 1958 and only lower than the No. 7 pick in 2007 in the new millennium.
Bridges has a trait that has been praised by people - the NBA's strongest iron man, model worker, since he entered the league, he has not stopped a game, as of the end of this season, he has played 474 consecutive appearances in the regular season to rank first in the active roster, ranking 13th in the NBA overall all-time list, the first in league history is the ascetic man AC Green, he set a record of 1192 consecutive appearances from 1986 to 2001, it is said that the secret to his health and high appearance rate is to stay away from women, Until the age of 38, Bridges was still a child, which Bridges did not study, he and his girlfriend Rosati were like glue in college, and next season Bridges is expected to break Fisher's record of 537 consecutive appearances and break the NBA all-time top 10.
In addition to the consecutive appearance record, Bridges also showed iron man characteristics on the court, he averaged 34.8 minutes per game in the 23-24 season, ranked 22nd in the NBA, but the average running distance of 4313 meters per game ranked 4th in the league, only lower than Tres Maxey, Miles Bridges, Daron Fox, of which the average offensive running distance of 2381 meters per game ranked fourth in the league, and the average defensive running distance of 1932 meters per game ranked 10th in the league, and his role in the Suns was positioned as a 3D player, After joining the Nets, he has become the boss of the team, but it can be seen from the defensive running distance that he is still strict with himself, even when he is the boss, he has not relaxed at all on the defensive end.
Since he was traded to the Nets last season, his role on the offensive end has increased dramatically, averaging 26.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 34.2 minutes per game in 27 games after joining the Nets, and the PER efficiency value is as high as 21.3.
But after a season's test, the situation has taken a turn for the worse, Bridges has reached a career high in the number of shots and ball use in the 23-24 season, but in the end he did not play the highlight performance at the end of last season, there are many reasons for this situation, today I only talk about Bridges personally, he still seems to be unable to play the role of the main C, I start with Bridges's statistical performance on both ends of the offensive and defensive ends.
Scoring is a hard indicator of a superstar, as long as he has the ability to score like chopping melons and vegetables, he is a superstar wherever he goes, Bridges is almost meaningless in this regard, this season he averaged 15.8 shots per game to rank second in the Nets, and has ranked 36th in the league, the first place in the Nets is Cam Thomas, it stands to reason that Bridges is higher than Thomas in terms of prestige, status, age, experience, etc., but he is still second, on the one hand, the player's personality, On the one hand, the inherent way of playing that has been cultivated over the years needs to be changed, his ball usage rate of 24.3% is significantly behind Thomas's 30.5%, and even Lonnie Walker's ball usage rate on the bench has reached 24.4%, which is slightly higher than him.
One thing to emphasise is that perhaps because Bridges played too impressively at the end of last season, the current teams in the league target him as the top scorer against the Nets, this season he suffered 1347 packs and ranked 24th in the league, more packs in a single season than in the first five years of his career combined, you must know that there were Paul and Booker in the Suns before, and he rarely enjoyed the special treatment of bag defense, The increased defensive focus and intensity is one of the main reasons for the significant drop in his stats from the end of last season.
Bridges scored 40% of his points from the outside three-point line, averaging 7.2 three-point shots per game, ranking first in the Nets and 17th in the league, shooting 2.7 shots per game and shooting 37.2% per game, including 444 catch-and-shoot three-point shots, 171 shots with a shooting rate of 38.5%, and 127 three-point shots with the ball and 43 shots with a shooting rate of 34%. The individual's three-point shooting ability with the ball is obviously insufficient, and it is difficult to become the main C.
31% of Bridges' scores come from breakthrough scores, 23-24 regular season with a total of 870 balls and more than 870 times, ranking 23rd in the league, breaking through the frame 416 times to hit 197 balls, the shooting rate of 47.4%, the current league's top first-class raiders break through the shooting rate are above 55%, it can be seen that Bridges's breakthrough attack efficiency is very average, in addition, he is not willing to attack the frame after breaking through with the ball, often sharing the ball to teammates, breaking through the passing rate of 35.6%, to put it nicely, it is called a selfless team of play, To say that it is not good to say is to be less aggressive.
Put a comparative data, Thomas of the same team broke through 883 times with the ball and ranked 22nd in the league, his breakthrough times were only 13 more than Bridges, and he could break through the frame to 497 times, hitting 243 goals with a shooting rate of 49%, and a breakthrough pass rate of only 27.9%.
Of course, although Thomas's small train is hot, but to the critical moment of the game is still the veteran is more reliable, in terms of key scoring data, Bridges ranks first in the Nets with 114 points in key points, ranked 6th in the league, shooting 79 in key moments 39 shooting rate of 49.4%, in addition to 16 key rebounds, and then look at Thomas, he scored 52 points at critical moments this season, but a closer look at the efficiency and shooting rate is miserable, shooting 47 at critical moments 13 shooting rate is only 27.7%, Among them, he shot 13% of 23 from the field with 3 of 3 from the field at critical moments, and it can be said that Thomas was completely a wave shot of a blind cat touching a dead mouse at a critical moment.
JUDGING FROM THE OVERALL OFFENSIVE PERFORMANCE, BRIDGES IS CURRENTLY LABELED AS AN EXCELLENT CATCH-AND-SHOOT SHOOTER, A SECONDARY OFFENSE WITH BREAKTHROUGH SCORING AND BALL DISTRIBUTION ABILITY, AND A RELIABLE SCORER AT CRITICAL MOMENTS.
After talking about offense and defense, Bridges is currently the strongest outside finisher in the NBA league, he was selected as the best defensive team in the 21-22 season, and lost to Smart in the best defensive player selection to get second, this season the Nets overall defense is poor, they rank 20th in the league with 116 defensive efficiency, so Bridges' defensive performance has been dragged down, and opponents are averaging 11.6 shots in front of him to hit 5.4 goals per game, limiting opponents' shooting rate to 46.5%, On average, only 0.5 percentage points lower opponents' shooting percentage.
He has a natural physical advantage when facing guard players, with an arm span of 2.15 meters that ranks 12th among all 1-3 players in the NBA, coupled with excellent movement speed and anti-blocking and pick-and-roll literacy, he can cause huge defensive pressure on the opponent, 663 minutes against guard players this season, limiting the opponent's shooting rate to 45.5%, and 341 minutes against forward players, limiting the opponent's shooting rate to 45.8%, which is a very good level, but one thing is that it is dragged down by the Nets' poor rotation defense, Bridges has been very poor at disrupting opponents' outside three-point shooting this season, shooting more than 40 percent from three-point range under both the guard and the forward line, which is very unqualified.
Judging from this season's performance, everyone's understanding of Bridges is clearer, and it is a little difficult for him to be the team's big boss, but he is definitely the best auxiliary helper in the league at present, through Wei Shao joining the Lakers, Beal joining the Suns, we can see that NBA games are not playing video games, simply relying on stacking stars can not play a benign effect of 1+1 greater than 2 at all, on the contrary, through the best auxiliary Ju Holiday to join the Bucks and the Celtics to help the team win the championship The successful case also proves, A championship-level team needs a clear division of roles and their own duties, which is like a DOTA game, where the five roles are assigned to the main C, the deputy C, the GANK, the support, and the resources are limited, but when the five roles are fat, it is a crushing game, and it is expected that Bliskey will join the Knicks to help the team achieve excellent results.