MILWAUKEE — Mikal Bridges noticed the headlines. It’s onerous to not. When a two-time MVP reportedly names your staff as his most well-liked vacation spot, the noise tends to search out you.
Giannis Antetokounmpo has his sights set on Madison Sq. Backyard, and the Knicks — like each entrance workplace within the league — could be silly to not pay attention. This can be a participant who single-handedly delivered Milwaukee its first championship in half a century, the type of generational expertise price emptying the vault for.
The irony, after all, is that Bridges was the vault.
The Knicks despatched out 5 first-round picks to amass him from Brooklyn two summers in the past — the identical draft capital they’d now must rebuild if Antetokounmpo ever pressured his method out of Milwaukee. Which makes Bridges, pretty or not, a possible commerce chip ought to these conversations ever resurface.
Bridges has heard the chatter. He simply doesn’t care to entertain it.
“I don’t know. Nothing we can do. Ain’t nothing we can control about it,” he mentioned after morning shootaround Tuesday at Fiserv Discussion board. “So just go out, it’s whatever. Just do whatever I was doing.”
He’s proper. Even when Bridges delivers a profession yr, the maths is the maths: Antetokounmpo will make $58.5 million in 2026–27, and the Knicks would want to cobble collectively contracts — possible together with key starters — simply to make the deal work.
And if The Greek Freak ever does make his method to New York, he’d convey one thing the Knicks haven’t had in 5 a long time: simple, title-contending legitimacy.
That’s, after all, until the Knicks ship proper now — in an East out of the blue up for grabs, with Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton sidelined and Antetokounmpo’s Bucks ostensibly on the ropes after waiving Damian Lillard and swapping him out for Myles Turner and Cole Anthony.
“I think they still got a lot of talent around him,” Bridges mentioned. “Obviously Giannis, he’s the head of the snake, but I think I like their additions and guys that have been there for some years. They’re still a really good team and they look good.”
Maybe the Bucks don’t want Lillard, or a standard level guard to start with. In spite of everything, attempt naming an actual weak point in Antetokounmpo’s recreation outdoors of free throws and long-range capturing.
The Dallas Mavericks are operating their very own experiment, sliding No. 1 total choose Cooper Flagg to level guard in a supersized lineup till Kyrie Irving returns. Seven-foot-four phenom Victor Wembanyama has assumed extra ballhandling obligations in San Antonio. As for the Bucks? They’ve merely made Antetokounmpo their level guard outright. He was already their engine, their decision-maker, their system. Now it’s official.
“Get [the ball] into your best player’s hands and let him do his thing,” mentioned Bridges. “You know Giannis. He keeps growing his game, knowing when to make the right read, knowing when to get to the rim. For them, I think it’s smart.”
Sensible may be an understatement.
Antetokounmpo entered Tuesday’s matchup towards the Knicks averaging a monstrous 36 factors, 16 rebounds, and 7 assists per recreation —second solely to OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in scoring and first in the whole NBA on the glass.
The numbers inform one story. The way in which he will get them tells one other. Probably the most dominant pressure in basketball may need his sights set on Madison Sq. Backyard sometime, however for now, his focus is locked on the names stitched throughout the jerseys standing between him and the paint.
“His ability to get to the rim and the free throw line [stand out], so just be aggressive [on defense] and help the guy on ball — stuff we’ve been preaching the whole season,” Bridges mentioned. Then got here the caveat. “But obviously Giannis is a different breed. So just helping one another and being solid, not putting guys on the line and letting the defense get set and letting guys get rhythm.”
This, after all, is precisely why the Knicks pushed all their chips in.
They traded 5 first-round picks to the Nets for Bridges. They despatched R.J. Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to Toronto for OG Anunoby, then re-signed Anunoby to a franchise-record $212.5 million deal. Each a type of strikes pointed to nights like this — when the task isn’t simply to protect an All-Star, however to outlive a pressure of nature.
It should take all 5 Knicks transferring as one to comprise Antetokounmpo. However make no mistake: the battle begins, and sure ends, with the duo affectionately generally known as Wingstop.
“He has the ball more than he’s had the last couple years,” Anunoby mentioned after Tuesday’s morning shootaround. “So just adjusting and being ready for different play types — him handling, screening, being aware at all times.”
New York’s prime defensive stopper declined to disclose rather more about his plan.
“I can’t say,” he mentioned with a smile. “I just try to make it difficult for him. He’s a great player.”
This was solely Recreation 4 of 82 — technically meaningless within the standings. However given the stakes, given the subtext, it carried the load of one thing a lot larger. The world, in some small method, hinged on how the Knicks dealt with the one participant who would possibly quickly wish to deal with them.
That dialog, after all, can’t occur anytime quickly. After signing his extension, Bridges is ineligible to be traded till February. And Antetokounmpo, no less than publicly, insists he’s locked into Milwaukee for the season — although he’s already left himself a door huge open.
“I believe in this team. I believe in my teammates. I’m here to lead this team to whatever we can go. … The moment that I step in on this [FiServ Forum] court, in this facility, I wear this jersey. The rest does not matter. I’m locked into whatever I have in front of me,” Antetokounmpo mentioned throughout coaching camp. “Now if in six, seven months I change my mind, that’s human, too. You’re allowed to make any decision you want. But I’m locked in. I’m locked into this team.”
And if the Knicks can’t recover from the hump after pushing all their chips on this summer time?
Properly, Bridges has already seen the headlines. They’re inconceivable to disregard. As a result of when a two-time MVP reportedly names your staff as his most well-liked vacation spot, the noise doesn’t simply discover you.
It follows you all over the place you go.
