The Knicks 100: Mikal Bridges

The NBA’s Iron Man checks in at No. 23.

Good morning! Another week passes with no Knicks news. If any when that changes, we’ll have it covered. In the meantime, the countdown continues…

The Knicks 100: No. 23 - Mikal Bridges

One year ago, the KFS faculty decided to rank the top 25 players from the last 25 years of Knicks basketball. By the time all the votes were counted, six (then) current Knicks made the team: four of the five starters plus longtime reserve Mitchell Robinson, and sneaking in an No. 25, Deuce McBride.

The only starter (and really, the only key Knick) from the team that broke the 25-year conference finals drought not to make the list was Mikal Bridges.

This wasn’t a case of a few haters holding Bridges down, as not one faculty member had Mikal in their top 20¹. He finished 28th in the voting, sandwiched between two other one-season Knicks: Jeremy Lin at 27 and Jason Kidd at 29. Lin, lest anyone forget, parlayed a magical 17 days into becoming one of the most fondly remembered players of the 21st century. Kidd lost his starting job midway through the 2012-13 season and then shot 3-for-25 in the playoffs before retiring. This was the company Mikal Bridges kept just a year ago.

And now he’s here, at spot No. 23 on the list, not of Knicks from the last 25 years, but throughout all of franchise history. This placement begs a few questions.

First and foremost, what changed? The answer - duh - is that the Knicks won a championship, and Bridges played a key role in their run to a title. More than that, Mikal picked a great time to have the hottest shooting stretch of his eight year career. From Game 6 against Atlanta to Game 2 against San Antonio, Bridges averaged 18 points with a true shooting percentage of 70. In the more than 60 years the NBA has been recording those stats, only four players had previously put up an 11-game postseason stretch hitting those marks².

(If you’re wondering why such a monumental achievement didn’t get more attention, it might be because the Knicks had two other players in this run - OG & KAT - who pulled off the same thing. Talk about a team getting hot at the right time.)

This just brings us to the next obvious question though: was that run - both from Bridges individually and the Knicks as a team - enough to warrant such a jump? Or did someone screw up, either me for having him this high now, or the KFS faculty for having him too low a year ago?

Let’s start by looking at Bridges’ 2025-26 season compared to his first in New York. Statistically, there’s little difference. His efficiency between the two years is nearly identical, and while he scored at a slightly lower clip on a per minute basis in year-two, he made up the difference in other statistical categories. Defensively, the metrics and the eye test improved in his second season, but that also came with a role change, as Mike Brown had him chasing around the other team’s best offensive player less frequently than Tom Thibodeau.

That coaching change was also supposed to come with a bigger offensive role for Mikal, but after the first few weeks of the season saw Bridges bringing the ball up more and even initiating offense on occasion, he eventually reverted back to a more complementary role.

This is all to say that he was, more or less, the same guy as a year ago, at least in the regular season.

So was one postseason really enough to make that much of a difference? If we rank players by importance during this playoff run, there is zero question that the top three are Brunson, KAT and OG in some order. After that, there’s a good argument that Bridges should be fourth ahead of Josh Hart. If so, it puts him in the same conversation as Earl Monroe and Dick Barnett as the fourth or fifth most important player on one title team. Both of those guys - spoiler alert - are quite a bit higher up the list, but they also have significantly longer track records in New York. Ditto for Bill Bradley, who was the 4th/5th man on two title teams. He’s even higher than Monroe and Barnett. But solely in terms of playoff ranks, Bridges is already 20th in postseason minutes, 22nd in postseason points and 28th in postseason assists. That’s quite an accomplishment for someone who has only been here for two years.

Of course, Bridges two most memorable playoff moments - his defensive plays at the end of Games 1 & 2 in Boston last year - barely registered on the box score. Those shots rescued his narrative from an otherwise underwhelming 2025 postseason, but they couldn’t fully wipe away the feeling that his first year in New York wasn’t what anyone was expecting.

That, more than anything else, is where I attribute the jump in his ranking. Just speaking for myself, a year ago, Bridges felt like empty calories. 90 percent of the time, his performance graded out somewhere between “surprisingly impactful” and “barely acceptable.” This was from a guy who was supposed to be the missing link - the rising tide that lifted the ships around him. We never really got there.

Given the cost to get him - and more importantly, the opportunity cost, with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s desired exit from Milwaukee hanging over this Knicks season before it even began - I definitely graded Bridges on a curve. In retrospect, even after just one year in New York, he was already one of the top 25 Knicks of the century, and probably something like a top-65 Knick ever. This championship not only wiped away that initial sour taste, but gave him the undeniable bona fides to jump head first into the top 25 ever.

How important was Bridges to this championship run? How many other wings in the NBA could have shot the ball with such efficiency while being decidedly a fourth option, almost never having plays run for them? How many could have effectively guarded so many different types of players from one series to the next? The Knicks don’t win Game 1 vs Cleveland without his shotmaking. Who knows how that series goes otherwise? Ditto for Game 2 against San Antonio, when Bridges carried a lineup missing both Brunson and KAT and somehow increased New York’s lead. It took almost two full years, but from Game 6 against Atlanta until the end of the playoffs, you couldn’t conjure up a better fourth option for this Knicks team than Mikal. What a turn that was from the end of Game 3 against the Hawks, when Bridges missed a potential game-winner that left many of us asking all the same questions about whether he was worth what Leon Rose paid.

He was. Without question, he was.

Should he be even higher? There’s only two names between him and the top 20, but both of those guys - each a beloved 90’s Knick - got the slightest of nods from me:

I said earlier that Bridges is 20th in playoff minutes and 22nd in playoff points. Larry Johnson ranks 13th and 17th, respectively, with a regular season resume that is twice as long and equally as good accounting for era. Like Bridges, he was the starter on an NBA Finalist and a conference finalist, plus two other teams that made the second round, including one that would have gone to the conference finals were in not for David Stern’s chicanery.

In that Game 6 against Miami - the one that Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston and Charlie Ward were suspended for - LJ had 20 points on 12 shots. Had he been allowed to play in Game 7, perhaps that outcome would have been different as well.

Speaking of “what if’s”, might the 1999 finals have been more competitive if Larry didn’t sprain his right MCL in Game 6 against the Pacers? In the playoffs up to that points, Johnson was averaging 13 points on 47 percent shooting and 35 percent from deep. He’d been having an outstanding series against Indy, highlighted by Game 3, when he put up 26 & 8 in addition to hitting one of the most famous shots in NBA playoff history. Against San Antonio, a hobbled LJ shot 14-of-49 overall and 2-of-18 on threes. I’d have given anything to see what a healthy version could have done.

It shouldn’t be viewed as a complete coincidence that New York’s two decades of despair began the season after Johnson hung it up, finally succumbing to the physical toll his body was never meant to withstand. In that sense, he’s the perfect pairing with Bridges, who never had Johnson’s talent but whose durability is nothing short of a superpower.

Speaking of durability, checking in at No. 21 is the man who holds the franchise’s single season record for most minutes played, when he logged 3457 minutes in the ‘95-96 season. He’s also the man New York traded to Charlotte to bring in the guy he’s one spot above here.

For my money, Anthony Mason for Larry Johnson is the single most interesting Knicks trade of my lifetime. On paper, the Knicks lost the trade. Johnson was younger, but his back was already becoming an issue, whereas Mase was a late bloomer who was just entering his prime at 30. The ‘95-96 season, Mason’s last in New York, was his first season as a full time starter, and arguably his best. Coming off a Sixth Man of the Year win, he put up a very Josh-Hart like 15, 9 & 4 as Don Nelson’s point forward. It didn’t fully translate to team success, but Mason did finish 10th in the NBA in win shares, easily leading the team in that and every other advanced stat.

Immediately after leaving, he made the All-NBA 3rd Team and All-Defense 2nd Team while getting MVP votes for the Hornets. He garnered DPOY votes in two other Charlotte seasons before making his first and only All-Star team with the Heat in 2001. His resume says he was Draymond Green before Draymond Green, just without some of the playmaking, and more importantly, with Dell Curry instead of his more famous son.

Would Knicks history have turned out differently if they never dealt him away? That’s tough to say, although we shouldn’t discount the positive impact of LJ’s shooting, even in an era where floor-spacing was still a novel concept. Johnson was also fully comfortable in his role here, whereas it seemed like Mason wanted more than what the Knicks were willing to give him at that time.

Regardless of how an alternative version of history might have gone, Anthony Mason remains an indelible figure in Knicks lore. In his five seasons in New York, he was always a guy you wanted on the floor more, not less. The fact that he ranks in the top 20 in postseason points, rebounds and assists while starting just eight playoff games as a Knick speaks to how indispensable he was once he got on the court.

Oh, and he had the best haircuts of any player in the history of professional sports.

And with that, we’ve arrived at our top 20, which kicks off on Wednesday with the modern day Mase, and someone who has always been worth far more than the numbers indicate.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. For those wondering, I had him 32. More on that ranking shortly.

2. Kevin McHale, Shawn Kemp, and funny enough, both Curry brothers.