One of the biggest trades that happened last season was Kevin Durant moving to the Phoenix Suns which also saw Mikal Bridges moving the other way along with Cam Johnson. Recently Bridges had a candid conversation with Paul George on his podcast sharing his thoughts on the entire trade fiasco.
It was surprising for the Phoenix Suns when they realized that Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson are the two players involved in the package. Both the players were extremely connected with the fanbase and brought great value to the team. But it was also Phoenix’s only chance to bring the likes of Kevin Durant and pair him up with DeAndre Ayton, and Chris Paul to create a superteam that can win the NBA Championship.
Bridges revealed that he had an intuition that he was going to get traded even before the season started. He read Durant’s wish of moving to Phoenix and felt that it might be him, who gets traded. “In the summer, KD said he wanted to go Phoenix.” Bridges said. “So, it was kind of in the back of my head cause, we’re not dumb. I was gone, Cam Johnson knew he was [gone].
“So, I’, like, ‘Well, it ain’t [Devin] Booker leaving, I don’t think it’s DA (Deandre Ayton), I don’t think it’s CP (Chris Paul).’ So I always made jokes of me and Cam, ‘Damn, Kd bout to come here bro. Pack your bags, we outta here,” Bridges shared her thoughts.
Bridges revealed that he was fooling around with the Nets staff when they played them. However, in two days the deal was done and Bridges was really making the move to Brooklyn.
“When the KD thing happened, I was just like, ‘Damn.’ I didn’t think that was really gonna happen, even when I got to Brooklyn that day before when we were about to play them. I was f***ing around… Then I get traded two days later.”
Along with Bridges, the Suns had sent the talented youngster Cam Johnson and Jae Crowd along with four first-round picks.
The move to Brooklyn worked wonders for Bridges who has now grown in stature as a scorer. While he was mostly known for his defensive abilities, he has developed into a great scorer now. Playing 56 games for Phoenix Suns, he averaged 17.2 points per game. However, when he made the move to Brooklyn the average increased by 10 points in the 27 games that he featured. He will look to play a bigger role in the upcoming season and that will us a clearer idea.
He is expected to lead the Brooklyn Nets and guide them to the next level.
