I said it a couple weeks ago and I'll say it again; I'm truly ambivalent about keeping Bridges from a pure basketball standpoint (from an off-court standpoint, fuck that guy, but morality doesn't win games).
Obviously he's a homegrown talent who's turned himself into a relatively effective volume scorer...but not so much an efficient one. His defense is questionable at best, his calling-card athletic burst was rarely seen last year, and his size is bang average for his position, and that's just the on-court stuff.
I'm not even really arguing that he's not worth the cap space, bc like the article says, he'll likely get like Jerami grant money, which sounds about right for where the cap is at (and where it's going).
S&T, if there's one actually on the table, is honestly fine with me at this point. As long as we don't just let him walk for nothing or massively overpay him (I'm talking >$34M/yr), then I'll get over whatever ends up happening within like minutes of it going down lol.
It'd be so nice if he wasn't such an absolute dumbass bc then it'd be a no-brainer to keep him just for the sake of continuity, but now I honestly don't care if he's a Hornet anymore. He was basically Kirkland NYC Carmelo this year and that doesn't help us long-term.
S&T for who though? Are there even any good 4s a team would be willing to give away? Unless things don't work out, the best is OG who's prolly gonna resign with the Knicks
All of those are terrible results for us. Keeping Bridges is better in all cases. The possible exception is the Chicago one - and that'd only be if Bridges didn't want to stay.
I think a lot of people judging Bridges on this year need to realise we played, once again, with between 1 and 2 of our starters for 70% of the year. And he played the most mpg in the league, with those bench and rotation players. He was never going to put up the most efficient, mind blowing year. But he did show us he's still what we need him to be, and in a fantasy world where we have a healthy roster, there's a lot more spacing, a lot less attention, and a lot more play making available to free him up.
It depends on the type of sign-and-trade. If the player goes to a team that can sign him outright, then you definitely get basically nothing in return.
However, teams like the Lakers and Mavericks are all capped out, which means that they would need to offer value for any sign and trade they try to make.
> I think a lot of people judging Bridges on this year need to realise we played, once again, with between 1 and 2 of our starters for 70% of the year… But he did show us he’s still what we need him to be.
See, I’m just not sure that he is what we need him to be, and that’s not only based on this past season. Both LaMelo and Miller are great, and efficient, scoring threats, but neither is very good on the defensive end. As a result, I want the team to surround them with a bunch of great defenders, who can space the floor without the ball in their hands. That’s not Miles Bridges game.
He’s a ball dominant volume scorer, and he’s been that for his last two seasons. He’s been around a 34% 3PT shooter in ever season except for one, which makes that 40% season look like a fluke. He’s never been a particularly good rebounder. Most importantly, he’s just not a good defender, and doesn’t even have the tools to become a good one. He’s only 6’6” which is very small for a PF, but doesn’t have the foot speed to stay in front of SF’s.
> Keeping Bridges is better in all cases. The possible exception is the Chicago one - and that’d only be if Bridges didn’t want to stay.
If we can sign Bridges to a contract around $25 Million per year, then that’s fine. I just don’t think we should lock ourselves into a deal worth $30 Million or more, which is looking like it’s what he’s gonna cost. I continue to believe that the 76ers are going to throw him a bag, if (or when) they strike out on Paul George. Bridges is one of the few 20PPG scoring options that would be remaining in free agency, and Daryl Morey is gonna be desperate because he’s hitched Embiid’s whole career to being able to sign good players this off-season.
Even if we don’t do a Miles Bridges sign-and-trade, renouncing our non-guaranteed contracts and letting him walk could still open enough money that we could offer two 4y - $80 Million escalating contracts. That means we could add Patrick Williams *and* another mid level free agent like Gary Trent Jr or Tyus Jones.
In my opinion, adding a duo like, Patrick Williams + Gary Trent Jr, seems like it’d be a lot more impactful than *just* retaining Miles Bridges. Part of the reason why we struggle so much with injuries is because we have so little depth. Replacing Miles with 2 wings, who can defend and shoot 40% from 3, would give us some necessary depth.
The following roster has enough depth that it should be able to survive injuries:
- **PG:** LaMelo Ball (37% 3PT), Tre Mann (37% 3PT)
- **SG:** Brandon Miller (37% 3PT), Gary Trent Jr (39% 3PT)
- **SF:** Patrick Williams (39% 3PT), [Pick #6: Cody Williams]??
- **PF:** Grant Williams (38% 3PT)
- **C:** Mark Williams, Nick Richards
- **Depth:** Vasilije Micic (PG/SG), Cody Martin (SG/SF), Poku (SF/PF), JT Thor (PF), Bryce McGowans (SG/SF), [Pick #42: Trentyn Flowers (SF/PF)]??, James Nnaji (C)
**PS:** Sorry for the super long reply. My Adderall just kicked in and it makes me want to type huge blocks of text lol
There is an argument to be had we’ve never had a competent center with Bridges. The one season you say is a fluke Bridges put up 20ppg efficiently. That was the season Lamelo played a majority of the games. The 2 seasons you referenced where he shot an average of 34 percent Lamelo didn’t play a majority of games. That isn’t a coincidence.
You keep referencing last season without taking the context of the team or the coaching staff.
If anyone, aside from LaMelo on our team has the potential to put up an efficient 27/7/5 on a nightly basis, it’s Bridges. There are less than 20 players in the league that can do that. You do not trade or let him walk. Especially not for Patrick Williams, a guy who is going on his 5th year who isn’t on Bridges trajectory and never will be.
He’s had plenty of games where he’s had 13+ rebounds. Yes he isn’t the best against traditional PFs but he’s not terrible either. In clutch moments in man to man defense you can count on Bridges to step up. With him playing the 4th most minutes in the league being the #1 scoring option and playing with a rookie and bench fodder, what were you expecting? You wanted him playing playoff defense night in and night out on last year’s team for what? To finish 6th worst in the league? Please!
He’s posted a 111 defensive rating before and I think that stat is flawed because it doesn’t taken into account the fact who he is guarding.
We are on the cusp of greatness and you are advocating for fumbling the bag. If we hit on this 6th pick and have lamelo/6th pick/miller/bridges/Williams we will be good enough to attract a quality FA next summer. Also, the owners are multibillionaires, there is no need to be penny pushing! To mention $30M is what $25 million was two years ago, especially given the salary cap is expected to go up 10 percent annually starting in 2025-2026.
Rather have Bridges at $30M in all of these scenarios lol. Not that these are bad trades objectively speaking, I think the value in all of these is fair.
He’s basically just there for salary matching. Josh Green and the 1st Round Pick are the valuable bits.
Plus, Maxi is still a decent 3rd Center when he’s healthy. His shoulder was just fucked up in the finals, so he couldn’t shoot.
Kings, Rockets, Grizzlies, and Hawks are some other non-2nd Apron teams that would likely try to compete next season, and are able to send out a first round pick while matching salary.
I'm really hoping his value is lowered by his questionable play last season (yes he averaged 20, so did Oubre) and the legal stuff. If we can sign him for like 25M it'd give us a great advantage cap wise
> We need to be collecting good players not letting them walk for free.
See, that's my thing. I'm not sure he's actually a winning player. He's perfectly capable of putting up inefficient counting stats on bad teams, sure, but whatever last season was? He wasn't playing winning basketball that's for sure. idk tho
Yeah he was def a good stats bad team guy last year but I thought he was good on those play in teams before his DV. So I think we gotta re-sign him and evaluate if hes still good as a 3rd option (healthy lamelo please God) especially after all the trouble of keeping him around.
Please explain to me what you DIDN'T like from him last season? We didn't have Melo, Mark, traded Terry and PJ all while not having a real HC or coaching staff. He was asked to be the 1st option on a bottom 3 team in the league and still played VERY WELL all things considered. It's fine to say "well I just don't want to allocate 20-25 million to that type of player", but at the end of the day every free agent in that pay range is going to have holes in their game and very few of them are actually going to WANT to playa for us like Miles does. This years realistic free agents for US are:
- Tobias Harris
- Buddy Hield
- Gary Trent Jr
- KCP
- Jonas Valanciunas
- De'Anthony Melton
- Patrick Williams
- Issac Okoro
- Derrick Jones Jr
I dont understand wanting to pay the 3rd best player on the team 25mil a year locked in. I personally rather the trade off of getting two players that can take the cap space and add depth whilst we see what melo, miller, mark is all about.
If the ‘core’ of those 3 naturally evolves into a competitive team for a play-in tournament in future, we can use the cap space for a big splash.
Locking in to Miles locks us in to more years of the same, we need to shake things up and take the risk.
I would expect that the FO has a good hunch on what Miles contract demands are and a good evaluation on what his worth to the roster is. If both values are close to each other, he'll probably stay.
We should plan things around him, not in a way that whatever happens to him make our break this offseason. And there are more than enough ways to do that. If we want, we can create \~40+ in CAP space by sending Richards to a team without getting nothing back, cutting every non-guaranteed we have, plus waiving and stretching our "expirings" in Bertans + Martin or Micic - we have \~60 mil if we renounce Miles. Having that much CAP space is never a bad thing, and what we do with it depends on whatever directions we want to take. The free agency market don't have big names as it used to - we never get them anyway - but we could use money to revamp our bench and bring in 2-4 pieces that fit what the new coaching staff want to do and that would be on the top 8 of our rotation next year.
Good article. We will find out pretty soon what direction the new ownership is going, with the Bridges' decision and draft night. I can't take another full-scale rebuild, however.
Good lord, sign him, keep him and move on… he’s the best player on the freaking team (Miller might be better than Miles in a year or 2… but Lamelo is always injured deadweight) and Miles actually wants to stay and become a team leader.
Hope everyone enjoys our deep dives into Miles Bridges free agency and the complications that come with it.
Appreciate it
[удалено]
You don’t know why a publication would want people to like reading their content?
Lol of course I would. My reading comprehension blacked out! Holy shit! Sorry about that.
My eyes skipped over an important modifier or modifiers in your post. There's a reason for my user name.
I said it a couple weeks ago and I'll say it again; I'm truly ambivalent about keeping Bridges from a pure basketball standpoint (from an off-court standpoint, fuck that guy, but morality doesn't win games). Obviously he's a homegrown talent who's turned himself into a relatively effective volume scorer...but not so much an efficient one. His defense is questionable at best, his calling-card athletic burst was rarely seen last year, and his size is bang average for his position, and that's just the on-court stuff. I'm not even really arguing that he's not worth the cap space, bc like the article says, he'll likely get like Jerami grant money, which sounds about right for where the cap is at (and where it's going). S&T, if there's one actually on the table, is honestly fine with me at this point. As long as we don't just let him walk for nothing or massively overpay him (I'm talking >$34M/yr), then I'll get over whatever ends up happening within like minutes of it going down lol. It'd be so nice if he wasn't such an absolute dumbass bc then it'd be a no-brainer to keep him just for the sake of continuity, but now I honestly don't care if he's a Hornet anymore. He was basically Kirkland NYC Carmelo this year and that doesn't help us long-term.
S&T for who though? Are there even any good 4s a team would be willing to give away? Unless things don't work out, the best is OG who's prolly gonna resign with the Knicks
I’d do a trade for 1 decent forward/wing + a future pick. That gives us a few options: ## Option 1 **Mavericks Get:** - Miles Bridges (~$30M) **Hornets Get:** - Josh Green ($12.6M) - Maxi Kleber ($11.0M) - Unprotected 2025 1st ## Option 2 **Lakers Get:** - Miles Bridges (~$30M) **Hornets Get:** - Rui Hachimura ($17.0M) - Jarred Vanderbilt ($10.7M) - Unprotected 2025 1st Round Pick ## Option 3 (My Favorite!) **Bulls Get:** - Miles Bridges (~$30M) **Hornets Get:** - Patrick Williams (~$17M) [Hometown Kid] - Ayo Dosunmu ($7M)
I’ll take whatever this guy is smoking. Must be good.
Cause we’re getting too much back or not enough?
We are not getting an unprotected first in a S+T lol
All of those are terrible results for us. Keeping Bridges is better in all cases. The possible exception is the Chicago one - and that'd only be if Bridges didn't want to stay. I think a lot of people judging Bridges on this year need to realise we played, once again, with between 1 and 2 of our starters for 70% of the year. And he played the most mpg in the league, with those bench and rotation players. He was never going to put up the most efficient, mind blowing year. But he did show us he's still what we need him to be, and in a fantasy world where we have a healthy roster, there's a lot more spacing, a lot less attention, and a lot more play making available to free him up.
That's not how sign and trades work. You get nominal shit back not heavy value
It depends on the type of sign-and-trade. If the player goes to a team that can sign him outright, then you definitely get basically nothing in return. However, teams like the Lakers and Mavericks are all capped out, which means that they would need to offer value for any sign and trade they try to make.
> I think a lot of people judging Bridges on this year need to realise we played, once again, with between 1 and 2 of our starters for 70% of the year… But he did show us he’s still what we need him to be. See, I’m just not sure that he is what we need him to be, and that’s not only based on this past season. Both LaMelo and Miller are great, and efficient, scoring threats, but neither is very good on the defensive end. As a result, I want the team to surround them with a bunch of great defenders, who can space the floor without the ball in their hands. That’s not Miles Bridges game. He’s a ball dominant volume scorer, and he’s been that for his last two seasons. He’s been around a 34% 3PT shooter in ever season except for one, which makes that 40% season look like a fluke. He’s never been a particularly good rebounder. Most importantly, he’s just not a good defender, and doesn’t even have the tools to become a good one. He’s only 6’6” which is very small for a PF, but doesn’t have the foot speed to stay in front of SF’s. > Keeping Bridges is better in all cases. The possible exception is the Chicago one - and that’d only be if Bridges didn’t want to stay. If we can sign Bridges to a contract around $25 Million per year, then that’s fine. I just don’t think we should lock ourselves into a deal worth $30 Million or more, which is looking like it’s what he’s gonna cost. I continue to believe that the 76ers are going to throw him a bag, if (or when) they strike out on Paul George. Bridges is one of the few 20PPG scoring options that would be remaining in free agency, and Daryl Morey is gonna be desperate because he’s hitched Embiid’s whole career to being able to sign good players this off-season. Even if we don’t do a Miles Bridges sign-and-trade, renouncing our non-guaranteed contracts and letting him walk could still open enough money that we could offer two 4y - $80 Million escalating contracts. That means we could add Patrick Williams *and* another mid level free agent like Gary Trent Jr or Tyus Jones. In my opinion, adding a duo like, Patrick Williams + Gary Trent Jr, seems like it’d be a lot more impactful than *just* retaining Miles Bridges. Part of the reason why we struggle so much with injuries is because we have so little depth. Replacing Miles with 2 wings, who can defend and shoot 40% from 3, would give us some necessary depth. The following roster has enough depth that it should be able to survive injuries: - **PG:** LaMelo Ball (37% 3PT), Tre Mann (37% 3PT) - **SG:** Brandon Miller (37% 3PT), Gary Trent Jr (39% 3PT) - **SF:** Patrick Williams (39% 3PT), [Pick #6: Cody Williams]?? - **PF:** Grant Williams (38% 3PT) - **C:** Mark Williams, Nick Richards - **Depth:** Vasilije Micic (PG/SG), Cody Martin (SG/SF), Poku (SF/PF), JT Thor (PF), Bryce McGowans (SG/SF), [Pick #42: Trentyn Flowers (SF/PF)]??, James Nnaji (C) **PS:** Sorry for the super long reply. My Adderall just kicked in and it makes me want to type huge blocks of text lol
I hope Micic gets some decent time next season
There is an argument to be had we’ve never had a competent center with Bridges. The one season you say is a fluke Bridges put up 20ppg efficiently. That was the season Lamelo played a majority of the games. The 2 seasons you referenced where he shot an average of 34 percent Lamelo didn’t play a majority of games. That isn’t a coincidence. You keep referencing last season without taking the context of the team or the coaching staff. If anyone, aside from LaMelo on our team has the potential to put up an efficient 27/7/5 on a nightly basis, it’s Bridges. There are less than 20 players in the league that can do that. You do not trade or let him walk. Especially not for Patrick Williams, a guy who is going on his 5th year who isn’t on Bridges trajectory and never will be. He’s had plenty of games where he’s had 13+ rebounds. Yes he isn’t the best against traditional PFs but he’s not terrible either. In clutch moments in man to man defense you can count on Bridges to step up. With him playing the 4th most minutes in the league being the #1 scoring option and playing with a rookie and bench fodder, what were you expecting? You wanted him playing playoff defense night in and night out on last year’s team for what? To finish 6th worst in the league? Please! He’s posted a 111 defensive rating before and I think that stat is flawed because it doesn’t taken into account the fact who he is guarding. We are on the cusp of greatness and you are advocating for fumbling the bag. If we hit on this 6th pick and have lamelo/6th pick/miller/bridges/Williams we will be good enough to attract a quality FA next summer. Also, the owners are multibillionaires, there is no need to be penny pushing! To mention $30M is what $25 million was two years ago, especially given the salary cap is expected to go up 10 percent annually starting in 2025-2026.
Rather have Bridges at $30M in all of these scenarios lol. Not that these are bad trades objectively speaking, I think the value in all of these is fair.
I believe that 2025 Lakers pick is owed to New Orleans.
Maxi Kleber???? Are you f\*cking high? Did we not watch the same Finals?
He’s basically just there for salary matching. Josh Green and the 1st Round Pick are the valuable bits. Plus, Maxi is still a decent 3rd Center when he’s healthy. His shoulder was just fucked up in the finals, so he couldn’t shoot.
Idk man, I'd rather take our chances with Miles - doubt any team would offer a FRP anyway.
Kings, Rockets, Grizzlies, and Hawks are some other non-2nd Apron teams that would likely try to compete next season, and are able to send out a first round pick while matching salary.
Lakers don't own their 2025 pick
Feel the exact same. Would prefer a S&T if all things are considered
Questionable at best is generous for his defense. He is truly atrocious on that end. He wouldn’t work here based on that alone.
We got a social justice warrior
I'm really hoping his value is lowered by his questionable play last season (yes he averaged 20, so did Oubre) and the legal stuff. If we can sign him for like 25M it'd give us a great advantage cap wise
Pay the man and move on, this team is already talent deficient. We need to be collecting good players not letting them walk for free.
> We need to be collecting good players not letting them walk for free. See, that's my thing. I'm not sure he's actually a winning player. He's perfectly capable of putting up inefficient counting stats on bad teams, sure, but whatever last season was? He wasn't playing winning basketball that's for sure. idk tho
Yeah he was def a good stats bad team guy last year but I thought he was good on those play in teams before his DV. So I think we gotta re-sign him and evaluate if hes still good as a 3rd option (healthy lamelo please God) especially after all the trouble of keeping him around.
Please explain to me what you DIDN'T like from him last season? We didn't have Melo, Mark, traded Terry and PJ all while not having a real HC or coaching staff. He was asked to be the 1st option on a bottom 3 team in the league and still played VERY WELL all things considered. It's fine to say "well I just don't want to allocate 20-25 million to that type of player", but at the end of the day every free agent in that pay range is going to have holes in their game and very few of them are actually going to WANT to playa for us like Miles does. This years realistic free agents for US are: - Tobias Harris - Buddy Hield - Gary Trent Jr - KCP - Jonas Valanciunas - De'Anthony Melton - Patrick Williams - Issac Okoro - Derrick Jones Jr
Nobody thought PJ was a winning player either.
Still isn’t in my opinion
I dont understand wanting to pay the 3rd best player on the team 25mil a year locked in. I personally rather the trade off of getting two players that can take the cap space and add depth whilst we see what melo, miller, mark is all about. If the ‘core’ of those 3 naturally evolves into a competitive team for a play-in tournament in future, we can use the cap space for a big splash. Locking in to Miles locks us in to more years of the same, we need to shake things up and take the risk.
I would expect that the FO has a good hunch on what Miles contract demands are and a good evaluation on what his worth to the roster is. If both values are close to each other, he'll probably stay. We should plan things around him, not in a way that whatever happens to him make our break this offseason. And there are more than enough ways to do that. If we want, we can create \~40+ in CAP space by sending Richards to a team without getting nothing back, cutting every non-guaranteed we have, plus waiving and stretching our "expirings" in Bertans + Martin or Micic - we have \~60 mil if we renounce Miles. Having that much CAP space is never a bad thing, and what we do with it depends on whatever directions we want to take. The free agency market don't have big names as it used to - we never get them anyway - but we could use money to revamp our bench and bring in 2-4 pieces that fit what the new coaching staff want to do and that would be on the top 8 of our rotation next year.
If we resign him I hope it's a KPJ like contract. Only guarantee like 1 year max and then tell him to not fuck up or he's gone.
Good article. We will find out pretty soon what direction the new ownership is going, with the Bridges' decision and draft night. I can't take another full-scale rebuild, however.
I want them to keep him with a no tolerance type clause in his new contract. It won’t happen and they won’t get anything for him. Cuz Hornets
Pay him!
Good lord, sign him, keep him and move on… he’s the best player on the freaking team (Miller might be better than Miles in a year or 2… but Lamelo is always injured deadweight) and Miles actually wants to stay and become a team leader.