NEW YORK, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 20: Mikal Bridges #1 of the Brooklyn Nets goes to the basket as Isaiah … [+]
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The New York Knicks agreed to a blockbuster trade Wednesday night for Brooklyn Nets forward Mikal Bridges, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. In exchange, they’re sending out forward Bojan Bogdanovic, four unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027, 2029, 2031), a 2025 protected Milwaukee Bucks first-round pick, a 2028 unprotected first-round pick swap and a 2025 second-round pick for Bridges and a 2026 second-rounder.
The deal reunites Bridges with his former Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo. They seemed to unanimously approve of the trade.
Five first-round picks and an unprotected pick swap is a steep cost for Bridges, who profiles as a low-end No. 2 option or high-end No. 3. However, his well-below-market contract—he’s earning $23.3 million next season and $24.9 million in 2025-26—could have driven his trade value higher than his on-court play would dictate.
Either way, it’s an understandable gamble for the Knicks to make. They were one game away from an Eastern Conference Finals appearance, and they just added one of the league’s premier two-way wings. With Bridges, Hart, DiVincenzo, Mitchell Robinson and Deuce McBride all signed through at least the 2025-26 season, the Knicks are now entering a clear two-year championship window.
Draft picks weren’t the only thing that the Knicks gave up for Bridges, though. Unless they tweak the framework of the deal before it becomes final, they’ll be hard-capped at the $178.7 million first apron since they’re taking back more salary than they’re sending out (according to the current reporting, anyway). If Bogdanovic is the only contract they include in this deal, the Knicks will not be allowed to have more than $178.7 million of salary on their books at any point between now and June 30, 2025.
That could force the Knicks into effectively having to choose between re-signing OG Anunoby or Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency this summer.
With seven players under guaranteed contract—Brunson, Bridges, Hart, Robinson, DiVincenzo, McBride and Julius Randle—the Knicks already have $125.8 million in guaranteed salary on their books next year. That leaves them with roughly $52.7 million in flexibility below the first apron and eight roster spots to fill if they don’t pick up their team options on DaQuan Jeffries and Jericho Sims and waive Mamadi Diakite, whose $2.3 million contract won’t be fully guaranteed until January.
The Knicks also have the No. 24 and No.25 picks in the 2024 NBA draft (as of publish time, anyway), which will come at a combined cost of roughly $5.6 million. If they keep both of those picks, they’ll be at $131.4 million in total salary (not counting Jeffries, Sims and Diakite), which would leave them $47.3 million below the apron.
If Anunoby commands anywhere close to his full maximum starting salary ($42.3 million), the Knicks wouldn’t have enough flexibility under the apron to re-sign him and fill out the rest of their roster without making other moves. However, both Wojnarowski and SNY’s Ian Begley reported Tuesday night that the Knicks do still hope to re-sign him.
That could effectively prevent them from retaining Hartenstein, though.
Perhaps that was in the cards anyway. Since the Knicks signed Hartenstein to a two-year deal in 2022, they only have Early Bird rights on him in free agency. That means they can offer him a starting salary worth 175% of what he earned in 2023-24 ($9.2 million), which would come out to roughly $16.2 million. He can receive 8% annual raises from there, but the Knicks can’t offer him more than a four-year, $72.5 million contract in total.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, who project to have more than $30 million in cap space this offseason, have already been linked to Hartenstein given their need for another big man. According to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, he’s also “expected to draw significant interest” from the Orlando Magic, who can create nearly $50 million in cap space this summer without batting an eye.
Between the hard cap and their Early Bird limitations, the Knicks might be resigned to losing Hartenstein in free agency. However, they could still hypothetically expand the framework of the Bridges deal before it becomes finalized to avoid getting hard-capped at the first apron.
If they aggregate two or more contracts for Bridges’ deal and ultimately send out more salary than they’re taking back, the Knicks would instead be hard-capped at the $189.5 million second apron. That would buy them roughly $11 million in additional wiggle room to re-sign Anunoby, Hartenstein and restricted free agent Precious Achiuwa.
However, the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement prohibits teams from aggregating multiple players on minimum contracts during the offseason. That means the Knicks couldn’t include two of Sims, Diakite and Jeffries in the Bridges deal to ensure that they’re taking back less salary than they send out. They might have to loop in another team to take on Robinson or Randle instead.
Scotto mentioned centers Goga Bitadze and Jonas Valanciunas as possible free-agent targets for the Knicks if they do lose Hartenstein. Either way, they’ll need to be mindful of whichever hard cap they’re ultimately subject to, particularly when it comes to negotiations with Anunoby. If they splurge too much to re-sign him, it will greatly limit their ability to round out the rest of their roster.
The Knicks cemented themselves as one of the favorites in the Eastern Conference with the Bridges trade, but not without a steep cost. Beyond the huge haul of draft picks that they gave up, they’ve now complicated the rest of their offseason business, too.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.