How Mikal Bridges morphed from ’Nova redshirt to ’Nova Knick

The Philly native became a two-time national champion at Villanova. Then he developed into a player the Knicks were willing give up five first-round draft picks to acquire.

Jalen Brunson congratulates Mikal Bridges during a preseason against the Minnesota Timberwolves last month. The former Villanova stars now help power the New York Knicks.Read moreHeather Khalifa / AP

by Gina Mizell

Published Nov. 12, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

NEW YORK — Ashley Howard still remembers when Mikal Bridges used to hide in the bathroom.

It’s how Bridges disrupted game days during his redshirt season at Villanova in 2014-15, when he and the assistant coach had the court to themselves about an hour before the rest of the team arrived. If Bridges dillydallied for 10 minutes, that meant 10 fewer minutes Howard could “just make [his] life hell” while smacking him with a pad as he drove to the basket.

“Just the excruciating challenge that I took pleasure in creating for him every single day,” Howard recently said.

Today, Bridges is leagues away from that teenager. The Philadelphia native and Great Valley graduate developed into a two-time national champion and an All-American at Villanova. He was a 2018 lottery pick by his hometown 76ers who was infamously traded to the Phoenix Suns on a wild draft night. He became a starter and lockdown perimeter defender on an NBA Finals team, the top offensive option for the Brooklyn Nets, and the player for whom the New York Knicks were willing to give up five first-round draft picks in one of two summer blockbuster trades in their all-in pursuit of a title.

Bridges’ move across boroughs reunites him with Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, his fellow ’Nova Knicks aiming to replicate their success together at the sport’s highest level. It is where he is continuing his reign as a modern-day basketball iron man, having played in 483 consecutive NBA games after never missing any games following that redshirt season. And it is where the pressure was high entering the first regular-season Knicks-Sixers matchup on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Center, as outsiders scrutinize his shot form and he works to get comfortable with his third team in less than three seasons.

Yet those who have worked closely with Bridges believe he is equipped for this challenge because of the qualities he embodies. He is consistent in his work habits and personality. His availability and skill set stabilize a team. And he is mentally tough.

“That man has one volume,” said Cameron Payne, Bridges’ close friend and teammate with the Knicks and Suns. “He stays the same, and that’s what I appreciate. … I love his composure. I love how he doesn’t really worry about things, and he just wakes up every day to have the best day he can have.”

Howard describes high school Bridges as skinny, but says he “could do everything” on the floor while utilizing an unselfish and intelligent approach. But while Bridges matched up against the highest competition on the AAU circuit, Howard noticed moments when the developing player still looked “soft” and not “super confident.”

Bridges knew it, too. He initiated the conversation with Villanova coaches about redshirting his first season, an early sign of maturity.

So strength and conditioning coach John Shackleton put Bridges on a more intense, four-day lifting regimen. And Howard put him through those ruthless pregame on-court workouts focused on physicality and playing through contact.

The coach said he would hit Bridges with force that would be called a flagrant foul during a game, pushing Bridges to stay balanced and keep his pivot foot planted without traveling. Then they would move on to shooting drills that they would start over if Bridges fell short of the coach’s desired consecutive makes. And though most of this skill work came on the offensive end, Howard believes it also helped Bridges become programmed with the “nasty intangibles that we value,” such as diving on the floor for loose balls and flying in to block shots at the rim.

“You said, ‘Yo, dude, this is what you said you wanted. This is what you asked for,’” Howard said by phone earlier this month. “… We attacked it, and I don’t know if there’s any player in our program who has ever taken [better] advantage of a redshirt year than Mikal.”

This also is when Bridges first became teammates with Brunson and Hart, whom Bridges jokingly called a “bully” to him when he first arrived. Eventually, though, Howard noticed that Bridges was the only player — in practices or games — who could defensively bother Hart while finishing inside. The coach also points to when imposing big man Eric Paschall transferred in from Fordham before the 2015-16 season — and began emphatically dunking on teammates in practice during his redshirt season — which inspired Bridges to ramp up his aggression.

Bridges ascended from an important reserve on Villanova’s 2016 NCAA championship team, to the player who used his 7-foot-1 wingspan to swarm ballhandlers, to the Julius Erving Award winner who averaged 17.7 points and 5.3 rebounds to help propel the Wildcats to the 2018 national title. Instead of those conspicuous bathroom visits, Howard predicted that Bridges was getting in extra work whenever he heard a ball bouncing from his office.

Bridges perhaps cemented his status as a lottery prospect in a matchup against Alabama in the second round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament. After going 0-for-5 from the floor and scoring one point in the first half, Howard “[lost] it on him on the bench. … I’m yelling at him things I can’t tell you.” Bridges responded by burying five second-half three-pointers to lift Villanova to a 81-58 victory.

“Every time Mikal scored the ball, he just looked at me on the bench and just stared at me,” Howard said. “That was it for me, because I was like, ‘All right, that’s the killer that we wanted to create.’ That’s the guy that, in my mind, I wanted him to become.

“When I saw that, I knew, bare minimum, this dude is an NBA player. He’s a pro. We did our job with this guy.”

The Sixers’ angle during Bridges’ chaotic draft night has been repeatedly rehashed. He was selected 10th overall by his hometown team, where his mother, Tyneeha Rivers, worked on the business side of the organization. Shortly after the pick, the Sixers traded him to the Suns for Zhaire Smith, who played only 13 career NBA games.

The lesser-known draft-night nugget: Bridges also “kind of thought” the Knicks might take him at No. 9, when they instead opted for Kevin Knox.

“When you’re at the green room at the draft,” Bridges said during his Knicks introductory news conference this past summer, “you kind of know when the cameras are following you or your agents might get the call a little bit before. And [the Knicks] were up, and I just looked at [my agents], and they just kind of shook their head. And I was like, ‘OK …’”

Turns out Bridges just needed two NBA stops first.

Kevin Young called former Sixers coach Brett Brown the first time he watched Bridges work out. Young, who worked on the Sixers’ and Delaware 87ers’ coaching staffs from 2013 to 2020, had just been hired as a Suns assistant following that team’s 8-0 run in the 2020 NBA return-to-play bubble.

During that surprise stretch at Disney World, Bridges gained notoriety for his defense on Kawhi Leonard and complementary scoring off cuts and spot-up attempts. And inside a Phoenix gym weeks later, Bridges “was shooting the lights out,” Young said.

“The first thing that came to mind was, ‘Man, I can’t believe we traded this guy when I was in Philly,’” said Young, who now is the head coach at BYU. “Mikal and I had a laugh about that many times over.”

In his first two NBA seasons, Bridges had already been tasked with the toughest defensive assignment, studying additional game-day scouting reports with deeper detail on those players. He had embodied then-Suns coach Monty Williams’ “reps remove doubt” mantra in his individual work with then-assistant coach Darko Rajaković (now the head coach of the Toronto Raptors) and Riccardo Fois (now an assistant with the Sacramento Kings). He also spent several offseasons working with Phoenix-based personal trainer Phil Beckner, who is perhaps best known for his work with perennial All-Star guard Damian Lillard.

Beckner recently reflected on the summer between Bridges’ first and second seasons, when the Suns had not yet hired their full staff after firing coach Igor Kokoskov. Bridges spent mornings lifting weights at the arena, afternoons doing cone skill work with Beckner, and nights returning to put up extra shots.

One time, Beckner said, Bridges made 800 in one day, over the course of two workouts.

“His commitment level was just un-freaking-believable,” Beckner said by phone last week. “… When you look at the DNA and the fabric of Mikal Bridges, [his success is] not a surprise. It’s really not.”

Once Young arrived to help spearhead the Suns offense, Bridges began to flourish as a third option.

While playing alongside pick-and-roll maestros Devin Booker and Chris Paul, Bridges’ midrange jumper in those scenarios became “automatic,” Young said. He also shot a career-best 42.5% on an average of 4.4 three-point attempts per game during the 2020-21 Finals season, which prompted the coach to encourage Bridges to take more when he received the ball on a dribble-handoff. And when injuries struck Booker and Paul for stretches of the next two seasons, that forced the ball into Bridges’ hands more to score and make plays throughout games, and particularly in crunch time.

“Sometimes, you get thrown in the fire, and you just got to figure it out,” Payne said. “That’s what ’Kal did. I never thought he was going to be any type of offensive guy. Obviously, he had it, but to be a go-to guy, man, that was a shock to me.”

That offensive juice added to Bridges’ All-NBA-caliber defense, including a sequence Young now shows BYU recruits of when Bridges rode Clipper-turned-Sixer Paul George over the top of an elbow screen and swatted a block from behind. Bridges bucks the NBA’s load-management trend by playing in every single game. That includes logging 50-plus minutes while chasing the speedy De’Aaron Fox around (and scoring 27 points) while “sick as a bat” in a March 2022 overtime win at the Sacramento Kings. And an endearing personality that the public saw through elaborate pregame dance routines and enthusiastic Twitter posts about the Phillies matched the energy he brought privately with teammates and staff.

“When we traded him, that was something that we took a big hit on,” Young said. “It’s just really hard to put a value on that.”

Upon arriving in Brooklyn, Bridges joked that he probably would have traded himself for future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant, too. But the new environment propelled him into a role as the bona fide top offensive option. He averaged 26.1 points in 27 games with the Nets to close the 2022-23 season, then 19.6 points during the 2023-24 season. In front of a crowd of Knicks fans in September, Bridges called his Nets stint a “damn high” of his career because “my game grew when I got there.”

“He was ready for it,” added Nets forward Cameron Johnson, who joined Bridges in that blockbuster trade with the Suns and was a longtime workout companion at both stops. “It might have surprised people. It didn’t surprise me. He just showcased that he could be that kind of guy that you can rely on: high-usage, decision-making, all that. He just kind of continued along that trajectory.”

Yet Bridges candidly called last season, which included the midseason firing of coach Jacque Vaughn, a challenging learning experience. When Young reconnected with Bridges during his interview process for that head coaching job, which ultimately went to Jordi Fernández, they spoke about Bridges’ drop in efficiency and the fact that it pulled focus from the defensive end.

But Bridges insisted he did not ask for a trade, a sentiment Nets general manager Sean Marks has publicly echoed. Instead, screams from friend (and Memphis Grizzlies guard) Desmond Bane, whom Bridges was visiting at his Dallas-area lake house, alerted him that he had been dealt to the Knicks on June 25.

Later that night, Bridges hopped on a FaceTime call with his new — er, old — teammates, which Hart captured in a now-famous photo. The ’Nova Knicks had (further) assembled.

“Everybody just geeked up,” Bridges said.

Those good vibes lingered into the fall, when Bridges joined Brunson and Hart onstage for a live taping of their Roommates Show podcast. Brunson gave Bridges flak for biting on his hesitation dribble move — and for the time his Mavericks blasted Bridges’ Suns in Game 7 of the 2022 Western Conference semifinals. Hart kept accidentally — or not accidentally — referencing Bridges’ long offseason after the Nets missed the playoffs. Bridges shared how his Villanova teammates have changed — or have not changed — since their college days.

Yet Bridges has already gotten a dose of the realities of playing for the Knicks.

Losing Donte DiVincenzo in the blockbuster trade for Karl-Anthony Towns the weekend before training camp meant this would not quite be the originally envisioned storybook Villanova reunion. If one typed Bridges’ name into the YouTube search bar in late October, “shooting form” was the first phrase to automatically populate. His jumper had a visible hitch during the preseason, and he had an 0-for-6 performance from long range in Sunday’s loss at the Indiana Pacers, which dropped the Knicks to 4-5 entering Tuesday.

New York’s Oct. 25 home-opening win against those same Pacers, though, provided a glimpse of how Bridges ideally fits into a Knicks contender.

He was one of four players to score at least 20 points on a mix of midrange jumpers and three-pointers and also dished out five assists. His perimeter defense helped hold All-Star Tyrese Haliburton to 0-of-8 shooting. And he did it inside the building where he won two Big East titles with Villanova — and where his locker now sits between pals Payne and Hart.

After that game, Hart called out critics of Bridges’ season-opening performance against the Celtics, referring to it as “most scrutinized 7-for-13 game I might have ever seen.” Payne also stood up for Bridges, telling The Inquirer, “Y’all better stop bashing that man. He’ll smile all day, every day.”

But Bridges will face this new challenge with the same approach acquired during those ruthless pregame workouts at Villanova, which launched an NBA career that eventually prompted New York to go all-in to make him part of the ’Nova Knicks.

He will remain consistent. And stabilizing. And tough.

“Just be true to who I am,” Bridges said, “and that’s just working and trying to be a good person on and off the court.”