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The Brooklyn Nets are one of many teams in the NBA that have plenty of matters to address before the 2024-25 season comes around and the games become real. One of the players that Brooklyn has been relying on, Mikal Bridges, is still regarded as a good player, but not as highly as he once was.
HoopsHype recently put out its top-100 players in the league following the conclusion of the 2024 NBA Finals and Bridges ranked 60th on the list. For context, Bridges ranks ahead of Houston Rockets guard Jalen Green and behind Rockets veteran guard Fred Van Vleet.
While this means that Bridges is not as highly-regarded (if this ranking by HoopsHype is any indication) as he was heading into this season, it’s still evident that he is looked at as a valuable player in the NBA. HoopsHype’s Frank Urbina pointed out in the article that Bridges had an aggregate ranking of 29th in the preseason so it seems that Bridges fell off by a considerable amount after not building on his performance towards the end of the 2022-23 season.
Bridges went from averaging 26.1 points per game for the Nets after arriving in Brooklyn last season via the Kevin Durant trade to putting up just 19.6 points per game this season. While some could point to the emergence of Cam Thomas as a reason for Bridges’ decrease of production, it’s more likely that Bridges has some areas of his game to refine.
With that being said, here’s what Urbina had to say about Bridges with regards to where he ranks on this list:
“Regardless, those are solid numbers and his ranking on this list is right around what his salary is ranked league-wide, so star-leap-failure disappointment aside, Bridges remains one of the better two-way swingmen in the league with scoring prowess, especially from the midrange, and the ability to defend opposing stars on a nightly basis.”