Mikal Bridges has officially agreed to a four-year extension with the Knicks worth $150 million. Everyone is already ogling at the price point. But it’s not the number that matters. Well, it’s not the only number that matters. The other: 31—as in, January 31.
Since Bridges is receiving more than a 20 percent raise off his current salary as part of this deal, he cannot be traded for six months. This timeline is often extended enough that it prevents players from being moved to another team until the following season. That isn’t the case here.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reports that Bridges and the Knicks came to terms on a new deal as of July 31. Six months from that will be—you guessed it—January 31. That means Bridges can be rerouted to another squad just inside one week of the February 5 trade deadline.
Before you ask: Yes, this is a big deal. It’s potentially a massive deal, actually.
Mikal Bridges could be integral part of the Knicks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo fantasy
Mostly everyone knows by now that the Knicks are still hoping to be part of the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade sweepstakes, if and when they begin. He doesn’t sound like someone preparing to leave the Milwaukee Bucks right now, but that’s kind of the point.
More and more stars are getting traded in the middle of the season rather than over the summer. Just think about some of the biggest names to switch teams in recent years: James Harden, Kevin Durant (from Brooklyn to Phoenix), Luka Doncic, Anthony Davis, De’Aaron Fox, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam—the list goes on.
Getting Bridges to sign an extension that renders him trade-eligible before February’s deadline is a shrewd move by the Knicks. It’s not just specific to Giannis, either.
New York won’t be able to ship out a single future first-round pick until next summer, and doesn’t have any blue-chip prospects over which opposing teams will fawn. If it wants to make any substantial changes, the moves must be driven by the inclusion of at least one of their best players.
Spoiler alert: It isn’t going to be Jalen Brunson. It could be Karl-Anthony Towns or OG Anunoby, but both of their contracts could be considered steep for plenty of teams. Bridges won’t crack the $40 million threshold until the final season of this deal (which is a player option). Anunoby is basically on the books for $40 million right now, while Towns’ 2025-26 salary clocks in at $57.1 million.
None of this is meant to imply the Knicks have to move Bridges, or that they brokered this extension with the intention to jettison him soon after. But when you’re a contender with very few assets and zero financial flexibility, every little bit of optionality counts. This iota of flexibility just so happens to have potentially huge implications.