After the Brooklyn Nets traded away Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, many were ready to just write the team off.
Supposedly devoid of a star-level talent on the roster, it looked like the Nets were primed and ready to start a rebuild. That’s how most of the NBA world saw it. But the Nets read the situation completely differently.
Sure, they gave up a couple of high-level players in two separate trades. But they absolutely got one back in Mikal Bridges.
The Nets value Bridges just as they would a superstar player and the team has already proven that by turning down two incredible offers for their up-and-coming swingman. One came shortly after they traded for him when Brooklyn received an offer of four (!!!!!) first-round picks in an effort to pry Bridges away. The other came in a reported offer from the Portland Trail Blazers for the No. 3 overall pick and Anfernee Simons.
It’s clear: Brooklyn believes Bridges is a star. And in the 2022-23 season, he proved the team right. He averaged 26.1 points in Brooklyn while shooting 47 percent from the floor and 37 percent from 3-point range. And he was still guarding the opposing team’s best players on the perimeter.
Ahead of the NBA Draft, Bridges partnered with eBay to promote their new Collectors Camp — a program created to teach collectors about the trading card marketplace, particularly in the sports world.
Participants in the camp receive actual training from industry experts provided by eBay who teach things like trading strategy, how to read the marketplace and industry insights. The aim is to turn casual collectors into legitimate investors and professional sellers.
The camp will travel throughout the summer, including to the MLB All-Star game in Seattle this July. Brooklyn, however, was its first stop — Bridges’ new stomping grounds.
For The Win got a chance to chat with Bridges about the camp, his time in Phoenix with the Suns, his move to Brooklyn and other fun moments from the NBA season.
What follows is our conversation. Enjoy.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Obviously, you're partnering with eBay to launch the Collectors Camp, tell me a little about that.
Mikal Bridges: Just great to have the opportunity with eBay and the Collector’s Camp. You can trade and get cards that you probably grew up wanting, just for the memories. You know, favorite players and stuff.
For me, when I was younger, I used to be obsessed with getting cards of all of my favorite players. And every time you’d get one of the packs of cards and look for the best one out of them. I always tried to get Tracy McGrady cards.
As I got a little older, I understood that eBay made it way easier to get cards. I just didn’t know that at a younger age. But as I got older it made it way easier to find.
One of my favorite moments for you this season was when you and Deandre Ayton were dancing with this little kid to NBA Youngboy's Nevada. Do you remember that?
I got a chance to chop it up with @mikal_bridges a bit ahead of the NBA Draft and I HAD to ask him about my favorite moment from this season:
That time he and DeAndre Ayron turned up to Youngboy with that lil fan 😂 pic.twitter.com/SYARmmjqNY
— Michael Sykes, II (@MikeDSykes) June 23, 2023
MB: It happened earlier in the year when me, [Deandre Ayton], [Cameron Payne], a lot of us, when Nevada came on we were just singing it. When we’d hang out, that was just our song.
Time went on and it was just one of those days and it came on again. The energy was just high. We were just singing and I think the video already went viral. …We were just pumped up.
And the little kid, we were just dancing and I glance over, and he’s singing every word to the song. I know every lyric and I’m looking at him and he’s saying every single word. He’s not mumbling nothing.
He's spitting it with you.
MB: Oh, yeah. And so we look over and we see him, and we were like “Oh yeah.” Then I peeped he had my jersey on and I’m like “Oh, that’s big love.” So I went over to him and kept dancing.
Then he did his little leg kick with his foot. If you see, he started doing his kick dance and it surprised us and he started really getting into it. We were loving it. Just energy, man. That was just a fun moment and it was really the kid that kind of got us boosted up.
What was it like being traded? You seemed to be at peace with it a bit when it happened.
MB: It’s part of the business. Being traded on draft night by my hometown team, it already built me to go through things like that with a trade.
But, like I said, to this day I love everybody there in Phoenix. The fans, teammates, the coaches. I love them to death. But I just know how the business goes. I know they felt bad and I didn’t want them to feel bad.
Coach Mont used to always say when things get tough in a game, “Listen, we’re not getting sent off to war. Life goes on.” That’s kind of the mantra I have. I’ll miss you guys. I’ll see you guys again.
Talking about Brooklyn, obviously you were in a different role in Phoenix. I'm curious about the transition into that. I imagine that there's got to be a different mentality for you in that situaiton.
BK: Coming to Brooklyn, looking at the guys we have, having no KD and no Kyrie, it just opened up for a lot more scoring. And that’s the mindset that I was on. “OK, I’m going to come out aggressive.”
My teammates there in Brooklyn made it easier, too. They felt the energy — they felt what I was on, just trying to hoop and win. They were letting me just play. And it was a good thing that I was pretty efficient, so they were like “keep going.”
I was friends with a couple of them before I even got there. Being around them and being close as friends made it way easier to be out there.
Was there anything you had to do to physically prepare yourself for that role? I imagine that defense are coming at you a bit differently now.
MB: It was definitely tough, for sure. Especially on the defensive end. On offense in Phoenix I didn’t have the ball as much, so I could get a little breather on offense and then go guard the other guy on the other end.
That a little thing I’m working on this offseason, being really conditioned. It was tough because now I have to create on offense and then guard the best player on defense. That’s a lot of energy.
It’s already tough guarding the best player when you have a full energy bar and you’re locked in. That’s an emphasis that we’re working on this summer — just being even more conditioned and even more in shape to get ready to do both.
Let's talk about the draft. Are there any prospects that you're keeping an eye on?
MB: There’s a couple. I’m not really too familiar with the draft because, once you get to the league, you don’t really watch college basketball anymore.
But, always, I’ve got to show love to Cam Whitmore coming from Villanova. He was a phenom coming into Nova in high school and all that stuff. I’m happy for him.
RELATED: Why Cam Whitmore fell in the NBA Draft.
But, there’s been workouts, there’s a good amount of guys. I just don’t know them by name. All I know is kids are coming in here better each year, so I’m never going to say it’s a weak draft class. These kids are nice. They can really hoop.
I've got to ask you about Victor Wembanyama. Have you ever seen anything like him?
MB: Like him? No. The only person that comes to mind is KD and he’s taller than KD. He doesn’t move … KD moves like a guard — he moves like he’s 6-foot-2. He’s in his own category.
But, Victor, man. 7-foot-3 with the wingspan and the touch and the handle and all of that stuff, man. The IQ even on defense with blocking shots … I’m excited to see how it goes for him and what they do. The whole world knows he’s going No. 1, so. I’m excited to see what he does with the Spurs.
