When the New York Knicks gave up control of six first-round picks last summer to trade for Mikal Bridges, everybody in real time understood it was an overpay. The now-28-year-old has never made an All-Star team, and has just one All-Defense selection under his belt, which came all the way back in 2021-22.
By and large, though, people inside and outside The Big Apple came to accept the opportunity cost, if not at least understand it. The Knicks bided time and assets for a while. Their perfect second-best player never materialized. Coming off a 50-win 2023-24 campaign, in which Jalen Brunson inserted himself into the tippy top of the MVP discussion, overpaying for Bridges' made a semblance of sense because New York had enough intact to consider him the finishing piece—that universally translatable tissue which connected them to real, actual title contention.
Eventually trading for Karl-Anthony Towns did little to change that sentiment. He, too, was another skeleton key who could unlock an iteration of the Knicks capable of hanging with the Bostons and Oklahoma Citys of the league.
Fast forward almost one year later, and the Bridges trade, specifically, has aged like whole milk stored on the surface of the sun. While he has been far from terrible, he also has not come close to justifying what New York surrendered to get him. That much draft-pick equity demands he be the second- or third-best player on a championship team.
To this point, he is not that. And reminders of how much the Knicks erred in those trade negotiations continue to creep up. Their first-round matchup with the Detroit Pistons has delivered plenty of reality checks. The latest one, however, comes courtesy of Jalen Brunson.
Winning Clutch Player of the Year is cool and all, but...
You won't find anyone of sound mind arguing that Jalen Brunson didn't deserve to win the NBA's Clutch Player of the Year award. The dude was a stone-cold closer for virtually the entire season.
Yet, while this honor is pretty dope, it's an uncomfortable reminder of how dependent the Knicks remain on a singular force to drive their offense. He is so inextricably linked to the fate of New York's offense that he's starting to draw comparisons to James Harden.
Believe it or not, though, none of Harden's teams have ever been this dependent on him in crunch time.
During traditional clutch minutes this year, Brunson posted a 42.4 usage rate while assisting on 44.4 percent of the Knicks' made baskets. Since 1997, which is as far back as the NBA's publicly available crunch-time metrics goes, Brunson's 2024-25 benchmarks have been matched or exceeded just eight other times, by a total of only five different players, among those with a minimum of five clutch appearances. Here is the full list:
- Derrick Rose, Detroit Pistons (2019-20)
- Kyrie Irving, Boston Celtics (2018-19)
- LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers (2017-18)
- Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder (2016-17)
- LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers (2015-16)
- Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls (2010-11)
- LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers (2009-10)
- Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat (2006-07)
That is some pretty esteemed company. But this is different from being ideal. LeBron's Cleveland Cavaliers squads are the only ones who went on to make the Finals, and, well, he's LeBron.
That neither Luka Doncic nor James Harden nor even Trae Young cracks this clique speaks volumes. They account for some of the most heliocentric single-seasons in existence, and even they haven't needed to ferry this type of late-game workload over an extended period of time.
The Knicks are paying dearly for the Mikal Bridges trade
This extreme reliance on Brunson is not Bridges' own fault. It is more so on the decision to forfeit control of six first-round picks—five outright selections, and one swap—without acquiring someone who can play the part of an advantage creator.
Trading for Towns only exacerbated the issue, not because he's a bad fit, but because Julius Randle is at least a facsimile of a No. 2 advantage creator, particularly outside postseason settings. Giving up him, Donte DiVincenzo, and control over a total of seven first-rounders, and then still fielding a supporting cast around Brunson that ranks in the 36th percentile of half-court shot creation isn't just a swing and miss. It approaches franchise malpractice.
New York is deep enough with tertiary options and overall top-of-the-roster talent to paper over its shortcomings—to a point. We assumed that point was a second-round date with the Boston Celtics. That's not ideal, or as the front office intended, but it's acceptable.
Now, though, it appears that point could come against the six-seed Pistons. And if it doesn't, the Knicks are still miles behind the reigning-champion Celtics, without a plausible path to catching them.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, either. Head coach Tom Thibodeau might be a problem. He is not the problem. It doesn't matter who you plop in Thibs' spot. Kenny Atkinson, as an example, might run a more inventive offense. He also currently has the luxury of working with no fewer than two, if not three, above-average advantage creators in Cleveland.
The Knicks are working with one. And after all they expended to get Bridges, the road to increasing that number is fraught.
For all of this team's flaws, that trade more than anything else is what's holding New York back—not Bridges himself, but the value these Knicks assigned to acquiring him.
Dan Favale is a Senior NBA Contributor for FanSided and National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.