The New York Knicks surprised a few people when they traded for Brooklyn Nets star Mikal Bridges ahead of the 2024 NBA Draft and the start of free agency.
Among those people was star point guard Jalen Brunson, who shared his surprised reaction on a recent episode of the Roommates Show.
“I never thought it would happen,” Brunson said. “I never thought it would happen, because, when’s the last time the Nets made a trade with the Knicks?”
The Nets and Knicks don’t make trades very often. The last time the two sides struck a deal was in 1983, when the Knicks traded a 1984 second-round draft pick, which later became Tom Sluby, to the New Jersey Nets for Len Elmore.
However, this was a unique case as Bridges requested a trade to the Knicks to reunite with Brunson, his college teammate at Villanova. Bridges also reconnects with Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo, two players he won a title with in college. Now, the group hopes to win a title together as the core of an NBA team.
It remains to be seen if the Knicks will be successful in their title hopes with Bridges as the co-star for Brunson, but if the championship was determined on chemistry alone, New York would be a surefire favorite.
The Knicks still have a lot going against them in their title hopes, and Bridges may not be the upgrade New York needs on a talent level to compete with the Boston Celtics and the rest of the contenders in the NBA.
The Knicks need Bridges to work out with Brunson because the cost to acquire him in the trade wasn’t small. The Knicks dealt Bojan Bogdanovic, Shake Milton, Mamadi Diakite, unprotected first-round picks in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031, one protected first round pick in 2025, and one pick swap in 2028 to the Nets for Bridges, Keita Bates-Diop and a second-round pick in 2026.
If this trade works out for the Knicks and they win a title, the Nets may never make another deal with New York ever again.
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