The New York Knicks scored a major coup this offseason as Mikal Bridges gave the team a hometown discount.
Bridges agreed to a four-year, $150 million extension on July 31, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports, with a player option for the 2029-30 season and a trade kicker.
It was $6 million less than the maximum Bridges could have signed.
“Bridges takes a slight discount from his max extension number ($156M) in order to help the Knicks have flexibility to continue building the roster and add pieces to the East championship contender,” Charania wrote on X.
Bridges also had the option to delay signing an extension next summer when he could add another year and more money, according to SNY’s Ian Begley. But Bridges followed Jalen Brunson’s lead.
Brunson, the Knicks captain and Bridges’ college teammate at Villanova, also signed a four-year, $156.5 million extension last year. Had he waited until this summer, Brunson could have signed for a five-year, $269.1 million deal, essentially giving the Knicks a $113 million discount and the wiggle room to extend Bridges.
“He wants to be here and wants to win here,” a league source told SNY’s Begley.
The Knicks will also have to decide on the long-term future of center Mitchell Robinson, whose four-year, $60 million contract expires after next season.
The flexibility the Knicks gained from Bridges’ discounted deal will help them in their bid to retain Robinson, who is their best rim protector and one of the league’s most prolific offensive rebounders.
Mikal Bridges’ Uneven First Season
The 28-year-old Bridges had a roller-coaster first season with the Knicks. He averaged 17.6 points on 50% shooting wth 3.7 assists, 3.2 rebounds and nearly a steal across all 82 games in the regular season.
But his first season with the Knicks will be remembered for two key moments — his disconnect with the recently fired coach Tom Thibodeau and his heroics in their second-round win against the Boston Celtics.
The Bridges-Thibodeau episode signaled the beginning of the end of the Thibodeau era in New York.
“Sometimes it’s not fun on the body,” Bridges told reporters in March. “But you want that as a coach, and also talked to him a little bit knowing that we’ve got a good enough team where our bench guys can come in and we don’t need to play 48 [minutes], 47.
“We’ve got a lot of good guys on this team that can take away minutes. Which helps the defense, helps the offense, helps tired bodies being out there and giving up all these points. It helps just keeping fresh bodies out there.”
Thibodeau denied they had a conversation, which showed cracks in the Knicks locker room that eventually contributed to the veteran coach’s firing at the end of the franchise’s most successful season in a quarter-century.
With Thibodeau gone, there will be more pressure on Bridges to deliver next season under new coach Mike Brown.
Knicks Add Mikal Bridges’ Coach in Phoenix
The Knicks will add two of Brown’s former assistants from the Sacramento Kings, Charles Allen and Riccardo Fois, according to Hoopshype’s Michael Scotto.
Allen spent the past season as player development coach for the Kings. He previously worked as an assistant video coordinator for the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and the Kings before his promotion to become head of video coordinators and later on as a player development/assistant coach.
On the other hand, Fois worked under Brown for the first half of last season in Sacramento. The 38-year-old Italian coach remained with the team after Brown’s dismissal. But the Kings did not bring him back after the season ended.
Brown is not only the connection Fois has to the Knicks organization. He has also worked with Bridges during their time together in Phoenix.
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