Unpacking the Knicks trade for Mikal Bridges from the Sixers' perspective

The Knicks made a monster trade for Villanova’s own Mikal Bridges, swooping in for a potential Sixers target the night before the 2024 NBA Draft. I am still sort of picking pieces of my brain off of the ground, but the show goes on.

Let’s do this in a running commentary style akin to the recaps around here.

— Mikal Bridges makes absolutely perfect sense for the Knicks. Skip past the Villanova Knicks jokes and think about what New York can build around Jalen Brunson by acquiring Bridges. If they can retain OG Anunoby, they have two of the best wing defenders in the league to switch across matchups and protect their diminutive top option on that end of the floor.

With Brunson as the head of the snake, Bridges and Anunoby can fall into roles befitting their skill sets, after recent seasons spent overextended on offense. Tom Thibodeau gets a player who has played more than 82 games in a season, so we’ll all get to see whether the unstoppable force can dislodge the immovable object. I still think the Celtics are the class of the conference and will treat them as such until proven otherwise, but the Knicks certainly moved a bit closer with this move.

(It does appear, however, that Isaiah Hartenstein will move on this summer as a result of this trade. His market appears to be out of the Knicks’ price range for reasons we’ll get to below.)

— There will be a lot of debate about the price the Knicks paid, and they gave up a stunning amount of capital: four unprotected first-round picks, a protected first-round pick via Milwaukee, an unprotected pick swap, and a second-round pick for the cherry on top. We could find 20 different people with 20 different thoughts on that cost, even if those 20 people were Knicks fans.

I think it makes some sense for New York’s situation specifically. They already have two-way role players in place to support the core guys, so while roster building is never “complete” they have much less work to do to find the in-between pieces. Compared to a team like the Sixers, they don’t have as many required additions to make outside of their core guys. I don’t think any team is ever set up enough to risk trading control of their draft future, but New York is on the high end of the scale with guys like Deuce McBride, Donte DiVincenzo, and Josh Hart already in place. You don’t have to scour the minimum market to fill out your starting lineup as the Suns did last offseason.

For anyone who has been begging the Sixers to make moves prior to this point instead of clearing the decks and leaving their cap space open for this summer, this trade offers a good example of why. But given that they’d taken this path already, it’s why I think you have to let the Knicks make this bid and not get trapped into a crazy offer of your own. Philadelphia trading five first-round picks is a much different beast. Sure, you would have Embiid/Bridges/Maxey, but you’d have to mostly complete your roster this summer using only cap space, knowing that you don’t have many picks to use or trade down the road.

Save for a situation where they trade for someone like Lauri Markannen — and word on the street is Utah has little interest in entertaining Markannen trades — the Sixers are still positioned to obtain a big talent via trade or free agency while also retaining picks for more moves. A trade for Brandon Ingram, for example, could cost something like two firsts, and then you would still have several more picks to move, either for another big-time guy or in smaller trades for the role players between your tentpole guys.

(I don’t know what it will actually take to acquire Ingram specifically, to be clear. But I do think that price will be cheaper.)

— The immediate reaction in Philadelphia was whether this meant OG Anunoby is potentially on the table now. Well, yes and no. There is a very important wrinkle as it pertains to the Knicks and Anunoby coming out of this trade:

This trade is not league-official yet, so there is a possibility that it will be amended prior to completion to work on this exact problem. And even if the Knicks were able to move off of Diakite and Jeffries in the deal, this deal would still effectively cap them for this coming season at the second apron.

The assumption around the league is that the Knicks did not trade for Bridges just to let Anunoby walk, and I still believe he stays in New York when it’s all said and done. Again, it must be reiterated, that his agent is the son of the guy running the Knicks. But the Knicks being boxed in by the aprons does provide some background for the Anunoby rumors over the last month. To plan for a move like this, you have to imagine a few hard conversations were had regarding the top of Anunoby’s market. And if a team like the Sixers wanted to go far over New York’s market to entice Anunoby, perhaps the money is enough to sway him.

(Whether it’s wise to pay way above market price for Anunoby is a different story.)

I think there’s a more important wrinkle for the Sixers coming out of this: New York is now out of the Paul George sweepstakes. They were a viable threat for George in an opt-in and trade scenario, which has been gaining steam in discussions with league personnel over the last two weeks. Good luck finding a way to make that happen now on any front (financial, pick capital, or otherwise).

There are still interested suitors out there, with Golden State, Houston, and Orlando all in the mix in one form or another. But George’s market shrinking is a good thing for Philadelphia, even if it’s just one prominent team eliminated.

Step back and look beyond George, and there’s more good news for the star-hunting Sixers. The Knicks have been a threat in basically every star-type trade for the last year, with New York lurking with a good team, a massive market, and tons of picks to trade. They may be a more difficult team to deal with on the floor (which is most important!) but they are out of the mix in these big-time trades for the time being.

— Every single move that has been made in the NBA over the last week or so has inspired the same reaction from Sixers fans. Which is to say, a lot of people are asking, “What the hell are they going to do?”

The frustration is understandable. It has been bad enough watching good teams improve, but it hurts worse seeing potential Sixers targets crossed off of the list in Bridges and Alex Caruso. Philadelphia advertised their plan as a path to maximum flexibility, and they still might deliver an excellent summer. But during the season, teams they’re competing with for Eastern Conference viability took options off of the board before they could even get to the draft and free agency, and now the Knicks have taken another who didn’t seem all that available. That dynamic is why so much of this offseason has been spent discussing players in their mid-30s like George and Jimmy Butler, with options dwindling and the Sixers needing to fill out a full roster, let alone a third-star slot.

The closer we get to the start of free agency, the more it feels like the Sixers could essentially try to stall and wait for “the next opportunity” at this year’s deadline or further out. George is being pursued by several different teams, Anunoby could stay put, Butler doesn’t feel like he wants to leave Miami (ditto LeBron in L.A.), and then you have to ask yourself how much you really want a guy like Ingram. Is it enough to cut into the pick pile you’d need to hold onto to trade for a difference-making star down the road?

I think this sets up an interesting dilemma for the Sixers. After selling the public on preserving flexibility and the value of this specific summer, would they really be willing to run back the same plan again despite knowing in advance that they would get crushed by their fans for doing so?

I’m confident Morey would be okay with it, as he views his job through the lens of needing to put a contender on the floor by the trade deadline. If the perfect team isn’t available by mid-July, he won’t sign multiple role players to deals he doesn’t like just to appease detractors. But I am less convinced the Sixers can keep all the necessary stakeholders on board without a big splash of some sort — whether that’s your star players or up at the ownership level, it only takes one large, grumpy figure to throw things into chaos. It’s easy to say you’ll take the long road and much harder to walk it. We watched this exact organization turn into a Colangelo family syndicate because of the impact of outside pressure.

(And by the way, while the focus often goes to Embiid in these situations, think of how Maxey would feel if Philly effectively “strikes out” this offseason and runs back a similar version of last year’s team. He, not the team, had to absorb the risk last season by playing out his rookie contract while waiting for his next contract. Maxey is not a hellraiser by any stretch of the imagination, but you’d forgive him or the people around him for being perturbed if that show of good faith ended without a move of consequence this offseason.)

As a general rule, NBA teams should not make moves based on the emotions of their fans. A healthy chunk of this fanbase (I would even argue a slim majority) wanted to move Embiid and build around “Simmons and shooters” coming out of a disastrous 2019-20 season. Whoops! But there is undeniable outside pressure to make a move that genuinely moves the needle.

— Are the Sixers doomed? Not as long as they have Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. Philadelphia’s moves have not even started yet, and anyone trying to grade the offseason based on inaction to date was never going to be satisfied in the first place.

But so far, it sure doesn’t feel like things are falling into place for the big Philadelphia offseason fans wanted. And as their competitors load up, the task in front of them only grows larger.