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Mikal Bridges discussion, news and highlights

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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#301 » by Saberestar » Thu May 23, 2019 10:18 pm

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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#302 » by SlovenianDragon » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:47 am

Kinda interesting to see the love for Bridges and then comparing that to the confusion for Cam.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#303 » by bwgood77 » Thu Jul 18, 2019 3:58 am

SlovenianDragon wrote:Kinda interesting to see the love for Bridges and then comparing that to the confusion for Cam.


Bridges is a premier defender. That's not Cam...and Bridges shot 43.5% from 3 in his final year. Mikal is a true 3D guy with good passing skills. Cam is a great shooter with passing skills. I like him as what I think he can do but I don't think he will provide nearly the value of Mikal, particularly on our defensive deficient team, and even if you consider them similar, and have Oubre in the mix, he is just using another top pick on a SF, when we don't have a long term prospect at PF. Saric maybe can fit in if we want to settle, but he is up for a payday as well.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#304 » by lilfishi22 » Thu Jul 18, 2019 4:58 am

SlovenianDragon wrote:Kinda interesting to see the love for Bridges and then comparing that to the confusion for Cam.

Bridges came into the league as a 2x NCAA champion with two-way abilities and he was insanely efficient through his 3 college seasons. By most measures, Bridges was younger, more accomplished and more skilled than Cam minus the pull up shooting coming into the league. After one season he's already one of the better wing defenders in the league, makes great decisions on both ends of the court, is already scoring at league average efficiency, has close to a 2.5:1 assist to turnover ratio and offensively was looking more versatile in the 2nd half of the season as he became more confident with the ball.

Johnson will have similar if not higher expectations from a readiness standpoint because he's a year older than Bridges and had the full 4 years (+1 redshirt year) in college to hone his game. The Bridges pick/trade is also a lot more justifiable when looking at who was available at #16 where we were suppose to be picking.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#305 » by Frank Lee » Sat Jul 20, 2019 5:14 pm

Lower your expectations.... Bridges was thrust into immediate playing time... Warren being injured, Jackson being bad, Oubre and TJohnson not here till the end... Who else challenged him? Daniels or Crawford? If CJohnson gets more than 10 mins a game I'll be surprised. Booker, Bridges, Oubre and TJohnson should get the bulk of wing time, and Saric, Kamiinsky at PF. This is a deeper team. Rooks will have to earn their minutes. Its a good thing.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#306 » by lilfishi22 » Mon Jul 22, 2019 1:30 am

Frank Lee wrote:Lower your expectations.... Bridges was thrust into immediate playing time... Warren being injured, Jackson being bad, Oubre and TJohnson not here till the end... Who else challenged him? Daniels or Crawford? If CJohnson gets more than 10 mins a game I'll be surprised. Booker, Bridges, Oubre and TJohnson should get the bulk of wing time, and Saric, Kamiinsky at PF. This is a deeper team. Rooks will have to earn their minutes. Its a good thing.

And in that time, he'll need to be able to contribute somewhere and the most likely place he'll contribute is with his shooting so my expectation is that he'll be able to shoot it at close to a .400 clip
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#307 » by Mjee » Thu Jul 25, 2019 6:01 pm

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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#308 » by Saberestar » Wed Aug 7, 2019 8:20 pm

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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#309 » by lilfishi22 » Wed Aug 7, 2019 11:49 pm

Bridges looking gooooood
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#310 » by MathiasPW » Fri Aug 9, 2019 1:47 pm

You can see the fear in Tatum's eyes.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#311 » by nevetsov » Fri Aug 9, 2019 11:37 pm

6th man of the year candidate? He'll get all the back up SF minutes, as well as some time at the SG next to Oubre, and might even play with Book and Oubre in the occasional small ball lineup.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#312 » by darealjuice » Sat Aug 10, 2019 2:06 am

Nice to see Mikal get a start for the select team scrimmage even if it doesn't mean much lol
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#313 » by Crives » Sat Aug 10, 2019 2:20 am

nevetsov wrote:6th man of the year candidate? He'll get all the back up SF minutes, as well as some time at the SG next to Oubre, and might even play with Book and Oubre in the occasional small ball lineup.


Probably not... 6th man award usually goes to a scorer
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#314 » by darealjuice » Sat Aug 10, 2019 3:48 am

Man the USA Basketball scrimmage has been pretty ugly lol. Select team with way too much 1-on-1 and quick shots.

Bridges looks like he's starting to fill out a bit. Didn't get a lot of opportunity on offense with his teammates going isolation every time they touched the ball, but good things usually happened when he tried to make a play instead of just swinging it. He crashed the boards hard though, and he was very good on defense like usual. Wish he got more opportunity to show something on offense, but he really wasn't getting the ball a ton.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#315 » by bwgood77 » Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:57 pm

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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#316 » by lilfishi22 » Thu Nov 14, 2019 4:52 am

Was listening to the Ringer NBA show with Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier and they were talking about the Suns about 18min in. They talked about the bench unit and Bridges specifically. They talked about how Bridges went 5 possessions without touching the ball and when he finally got the ball, they felt like he had this urge/anxiety that he needs to do *something* with the ball because he doesn't know when's the next time he'll touch the ball again and he plays like he doesn't trust that upper management won't forget about him in the rotation because he isn't used as much offensively. In comparison Cam is out there shooting virtually every shot whenever he gets the ball so his impact/role in the system is more apparent

They aren't saying this is what Bridges is thinking/feeling but that's how it seems to them when they watch him play. I do think there's some merit to that. I mean, the fact hat we barely talk about the guy (last post on here 22 Oct) is almost indicative of how forgotten he is.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#317 » by bwgood77 » Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:35 pm

lilfishi22 wrote:Was listening to the Ringer NBA show with Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier and they were talking about the Suns about 18min in. They talked about the bench unit and Bridges specifically. They talked about how Bridges went 5 possessions without touching the ball and when he finally got the ball, they felt like he had this urge/anxiety that he needs to do *something* with the ball because he doesn't know when's the next time he'll touch the ball again and he plays like he doesn't trust that upper management won't forget about him in the rotation because he isn't used as much offensively. In comparison Cam is out there shooting virtually every shot whenever he gets the ball so his impact/role in the system is more apparent

They aren't saying this is what Bridges is thinking/feeling but that's how it seems to them when they watch him play. I do think there's some merit to that. I mean, the fact hat we barely talk about the guy (last post on here 22 Oct) is almost indicative of how forgotten he is.


He's certainly talked a lot about it in the game threads. His minutes are down. Cam is playing pretty well on occasion and Kelly playing really well until this last game. Bridges is still playing elite D. Now offsensively I don't know exactly what the problem is but I still think he would plug into the starting lineup quite easily. He works very well with Rubio. I think when Jerome gets back it may be similar. The bench has certainly had it's issues, but think of it with Jerome and Baynes in there along with Tyler, Bridges and Cam/Kaminsky...or maybe even Ayton for a few games when he gets back.

Bridges is a glue guy and a smart player who has good court vision, is good at moving the ball, cutting and typically a good shooter. Something does seem to be in his head but stuff like this is rarely permanent. Of course we always seem to have one wing wondering if he was going to win the starting job, all this before we draft a 3rd one.
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#318 » by WeekapaugGroove » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:25 pm

I've always loved Bridges and still have high hopes for him but he's struggling on offense right now. I think it really starts with his jumper, I have no idea why but his form has kind of went to hell. He's 3-15 on 3s for the season, neither of those numbers are remotely acceptable. He needs to get himself open more and attempt and hit more.

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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#319 » by Crives » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:28 pm

WeekapaugGroove wrote:I've always loved Bridges and still have high hopes for him but he's struggling on offense right now. I think it really starts with his jumper, I have no idea why but his form has kind of went to hell. He's 3-15 on 3s for the season, neither of those numbers are remotely acceptable. He needs to get himself open more and attempt and hit more.

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My theory is his arms grew after college
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Re: Welcome Mikal Bridges! 

Post#320 » by bwgood77 » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:49 pm

WeekapaugGroove wrote:I've always loved Bridges and still have high hopes for him but he's struggling on offense right now. I think it really starts with his jumper, I have no idea why but his form has kind of went to hell. He's 3-15 on 3s for the season, neither of those numbers are remotely acceptable. He needs to get himself open more and attempt and hit more.

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Still extremely low sample size though. Appears to be mostly confidence for some reason, probably something to do with his injury. Booker had those nagging injuries and shot like 32% last year and now is at what, 53%?

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