Maybe grab a tissue box before visiting Mikal Bridges’s Twitter page after the forward was part of the Suns’ trade package for Kevin Durant.
Bridges will now wear a Nets jersey as part of the blockbuster deal that sent him, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder, four first-round picks and a 2028 pick swap to Brooklyn for Durant and TJ Warren. The 26-year-old took to Twitter to express his shock.
“Omygod lol,” he tweeted following the reported trade.
Even more heartbreaking may be Bridges’s pinned tweet. The Suns tweeted in August 2020 that they “just so happen to be a fan of the 10th pick,” a nod at the slot Bridges was selected in during the 2018 draft. Bridges retweeted Phoenix’s tweet and wrote, “I dont ever wanna leave” with a red heart.
Ouch.
SI Staff: Instant Takeaways After Suns Trade for Kevin Durant
This isn’t the first time Bridges has been a part of a heartbreaking trade. After being selected by his hometown 76ers in the 2018 draft—the organization that employed his mother—the Villanova product was traded less than an hour later to the Suns in exchange for Phoenix’s selection, No. 16 Zhaire Smith.
“I heard like people talking and they were just like ‘trade,’” Bridges said in a 2021 interview. “So I’m like, ’Nah, I’m ain’t get traded from Philly. Like what, bro?’ … They say I get traded to Phoenix. I’m sitting there, I’m like, ‘Phoenix? I ain’t talk to one person in Phoenix. I don’t even know who the coach is in Phoenix. I don’t know who they’re GM is. I don’t know who the owner is. I don’t know anything about Phoenix. Like not one thing. … So I’m just like ‘Phoenix? Man, hell no I ain’t going to Phoenix’. They’re like ‘Yeah, you got traded to Phoenix.’”
It all worked out for Bridges in Phoenix. He played a pivotal role in the Suns’ 2020–21 postseason run to the NBA Finals. A year later, he was selected for the NBA’s All-Defensive team.
In 2022–23, he’s averaged a career-high 17.2 points and 3.6 assists as well as 4.3 rebounds. He joins a Brooklyn team in possession of the No. 5 spot in the Eastern Conference, holding a 32–22 record.
