NBA trade grades: Bridges to the Knicks, and something cooking in Houston

The New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets shook up the NBA the night before the 2024 draft by making a crosstown trade.

The trade will send forward Mikal Bridges and a 2026 second round to the Knicks for Bojan Bogdanovic, four unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027, 2029, 2031), a 2025 protected first-rounder via the Milwaukee Bucks, a 2028 unprotected pick swap and a 2025 second-rounder to the Nets, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The Knicks will be Bridges’ third team after being drafted by the Phoenix Suns in 2018. He will join his former college teammates at Villanova Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo in New York. The group won the 2016 national championship together before Brunson, DiVincenzo and Bridges also won the 2018 title with the Wildcats.

The Nets were not done dealing on Tuesday night. Brooklyn sent two picks and two swaps to Houston to extinguish the Rockets’ rights to the Nets’ own 2025 first-round pick swap as well as a 2026 first round pick originally sent in the James Harden trade.

The trade indicates the Rockets potential interest in adding a star player to their young roster. Wojnarowski floated Kevin Durant as a possibility for Houston after the deals were done on Tuesday night.

ESPN Insider Kevin Pelton breaks down both trades and hands out grades for the three teams.

Brooklyn Nets get:

F Bojan Bogdanovic
2025 first-round pick
2027 first-round pick
2029 first-round pick
2031 first-round pick
2028 first-round swap
2025 first-round pick (via Bucks)
2025 second-round pick

New York Knicks get:

F Mikal Bridges
2026 second-round pick

Brooklyn Nets grade: A

Bridges’ combination of production and contract makes him invaluable to contending teams. Unfortunately, his current team was no longer one. The Nets could have hoped going into last season that versatility could compensate for lacking shot creation and elite shooting. A 32-50 finish, which resulted in Brooklyn sending the No. 3 pick in Wednesday’s draft to the Houston Rockets via the Harden trade, suggested that optimism was hopeful at best.

Confronting reality made it clear the Nets had to take this kind of package for Bridges while it was available. We’ve seen draft pick hauls of this size in recent years for perennial All-Stars, but seeing the Nets get five first-round picks — all but one of them unprotected — and an unprotected swap for a player who has never made the All-Star Game and will turn 28 next month is unprecedented.

The odds are against any individual pick Brooklyn got from New York being nearly as valuable as the pick they sent to Houston, let alone the ones the Nets sent the Celtics last decade that turned into Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Still, it’s impossible to hit a jackpot if you never play.

Part of the challenge for Brooklyn trading Bridges for a return built entirely on draft compensation was the Nets not controlling their own picks through 2027 due to the Harden deal. Brooklyn solved that issue with a subsequent, related trade that returned swap rights in 2025 and the team’s 2026 first-round pick from Houston.

Although the Nets’ cupboard isn’t entirely bare, they’re looking at paying nearly $60 million combined to Bogdanovic and guard Ben Simmons, neither of whom would command anywhere near that amount in free agency. And Brooklyn could also look to get value for role players Dorian Finney-Smith and Cam Johnson. Suddenly, the Nets look like strong contenders for a 2025 draft lottery that is considered far more loaded than this year’s draft.

A rebuild isn’t for the faint of heart, and there are some tough days ahead for Brooklyn. Nonetheless, adding five more first-rounders to the haul the Nets already got with Bridges and Johnson in the Durant trade has positioned them to either hope they’re on the other end of a surprising draft haul or dealing those picks to supplement a homegrown core.

There’s now a path to relevance for Brooklyn that wasn’t clear prior to this trade.

New York Knicks grade: B

The ‘Nova Knicks are complete, and reuniting in pursuit of adding an NBA championship to the NCAA title they won in 2016 with Bridges, Brunson, DiVincenzo and Hart all on the roster. (Bonus points if New York manages to bring back a fifth member of that team in Tom Thibodeau favorite Ryan Arcidiacono, who spent much of 2023-24 on the Knicks’ roster before being traded in the deal to acquire Bogdanovic at the deadline.)

Adding Bridges gives New York unparalleled wing depth, so long as the team can re-sign forward OG Anunoby as an unrestricted free agent after he declined his $19.9 million player option on Tuesday, per multiple reports. In Anunoby and Bridges, the Knicks will have two of the league’s most versatile perimeter defenders paired with DiVincenzo and Hart, both of whom might end up coming off the bench when Julius Randle returns — barring an additional move involving Randle.

Much like the reigning champion Boston Celtics, New York will have multiple strong individual defenders to contain star-laden teams. Both teams are also similarly balanced on offense. Bridges should benefit from having more scoring around him after chafing under the strain of a key offensive role in Brooklyn.

Bridges thrived in that spot after being dealt to the Nets as part of the return for Durant at the 2023 trade deadline, averaging 26.1 points per game on above-average efficiency (.607 true shooting percentage) the rest of the season. He couldn’t maintain that pace last season, averaging 21.7 PPG on .573 true shooting before the All-Star break and sliding all the way to 15.6 PPG on .529 true shooting thereafter, per Basketball-Reference.com.

Bridges’ scoring will take some of the pressure off Brunson, who saw his usage skyrocket to 38% after the break with Randle sidelined. Brunson handled it well, but did see a slight dip in efficiency as the focal point of defenses. With so many other shooters and ballhandlers on the court, teams will have to think twice about trapping Brunson so aggressively.

Down the road, adding another scoring threat could make it easier for the Knicks to move on from Randle, instead opting for a player who better fits their vision of spacing the floor for Brunson and playing defense.

For now, New York has plenty of additional business to handle this summer. Besides Anunoby, starting center Isaiah Hartenstein is also an unrestricted free agent. Just how much flexibility the Knicks have to re-sign both players will depend in part on how this trade is structured. If New York takes back even one dollar more in salary, that would trigger a hard cap at the lower luxury-tax apron.

The Knicks could sidestep that restriction by adding additional players to the deal to send out more salary than they take back with Bridges. Adding players would still hard cap New York at the second apron, but that’s nearly $11 million higher than the first apron. If this deal is strictly Bogdanovic for Bridges, the Knicks would be limited to about $33.5 million in first-year salary for Anunoby and Hartenstein while staying below the first apron. (Trading a player under contract, like center Mitchell Robinson, would create additional cap space for New York.)

Hard-cap restrictions could help explain why the Bridges trade makes it less likely for Hartenstein to return — as reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski — although that may simply be a function of the potential for the Knicks’ payroll to explode in future years when Bridges and Brunson sign new contracts.

Like Brunson, Bridges will command a sizeable raise from his current contract, which pays just $23.3 million in 2024-25 and $24.9 million in 2025-26. That deal was signed when Bridges was a low-usage role player with the Phoenix Suns and now substantially undervalues his contributions, which, along with unparalleled durability, is why he was so in demand in the trade market.

Consider that New York will pay Bridges and Brunson a combined $48.3 million in 2024-25, less than Suns guard Bradley Beal ($50.2 million) will earn by himself. It’s those bargain salaries that enable the Knicks to maintain one of the league’s deepest top-seven rotations after this trade. And the Villanova ties for Bridges and Brunson figure to help New York’s chances of signing both players to extensions rather than having them wait on the potential of making more money in free agency.

The main cost of acquiring Bridges was a bounty of draft picks. New York can no longer trade any of its own draft picks after making the No. 24 and No. 25 picks in Wednesday night’s first round, though the Knicks did hang on to protected picks they’re owed by the Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards as lower-value trade chips.

By going all-in for Bridges, New York has foregone the possibility of bidding for a bigger star, such as Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid,should one ever become available down the road. It seems likely Brunson’s emergence as a top-five finisher in MVP voting changed the Knicks’ thinking on waiting for the best player available in trade.

Not only does Brunson’s development mean New York has less need for a primary shot creator, it also produces urgency for the Knicks to win now while Brunson (who turns 28 in August) is in his prime and not being paid like the star he is. Time will tell whether adding Bridges can allow New York to legitimately challenge Boston in the Eastern Conference. It certainly suggests the Celtics’ path back to the Finals will be far more challenging next spring.

Brooklyn sends a swath of picks for 2025, 2026 first rounders

Brooklyn Nets get:

Return of 2025 first-round swap
2026 first-round pick (via Nets)

Houston Rockets get:

2025 first-round swap (via lesser of Rockets or Thunder for Suns)
2027 first-round pick (via Suns)
2029 first-round pick (via more favorable of Dallas and Phoenix)
2029 first-round swap (via less favorable of Dallas or Phoenix)

Brooklyn Nets grade: B-

Having already sent the Rockets the No. 3 pick in Wednesday’s NBA draft as part of the Harden trade, the Nets assured they won’t do the same thing either of the next two years, a necessary part of the rebuilding plan the team is apparently embracing after trading Bridges to the Knicks in a separate deal Tuesday night.

The cost was considerable. In order to get back the team’s own 2026 first-round pick, as well as extinguish Houston’s 2025 swap rights, Brooklyn gave up two first-round picks and two swaps utilizing the extra picks the Nets had coming from last year’s Durant and Kyrie Irving trades.

The only way for this deal to make sense from a value standpoint is for Brooklyn to prioritize ping-pong balls over wins the next two seasons, particularly ahead of what’s expected to be a strong draft in 2025. To some degree, the Nets may have overvalued avoiding the frustration that comes with watching another team make a lottery pick they “earned” this year. But if Brooklyn ends up with a top-four pick next June, the price will seem well worth it.

Houston Rockets grade: A

The Rockets were well positioned to extract maximum value from the Nets, adding to their own stockpile of incoming picks. Houston has bet against Phoenix in particular. The Rockets will get the Suns’ unprotected 2027 first-round pick and will get their 2029 first-rounder as long as it’s not the worst of those belonging to Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. They also have the potential to end up with the Suns’ 2025 first-rounder if it’s better than the one the Rockets end up with after swapping with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Tuesday night that one possible end goal for Houston is using those picks to acquire Durant, which would be ironic given Phoenix originally gave up the picks for Durant — and the Rockets landed the Nets’ picks when they sent Harden to Brooklyn to team with Durant.

Per Wojnarowski, the Suns are reluctant to make such a move now, meaning Houston will explore using the Phoenix picks to add another veteran star to a talented young core that surged late in the 2023-24 regular season. Whether trying to win now is the right end game for the Rockets is unclear depending on the player and the value, but either way Houston comes out of this deal ahead in terms of tradeable picks.