Nets’ Mikal Bridges hilariously names favorite athlete growing up

How many players can say they were traded for their favorite athlete growing up?

Mikal Bridges can.

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— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) February 20, 2023">presented Bridges with a series of questions to help introduce the newly-acquired wing to Brooklyn fans. And when asked who his favorite athlete was while growing up, Bridges couldn’t help but laugh as he revealed it was…Kevin Durant.

Bridges was 11 years old when Durant made his NBA debut with the Seattle SuperSonics in 2007. Fifteen-plus years later, Bridges was a big part of a trade package the Phoenix Suns used to acquire Durant from the Nets in a trade deadline stunner.

Bridges, 26, spent the first four-plus seasons of his NBA career with Phoenix after the Suns acquired him from the Philadelphia 76ers in a 2018 draft night trade. He signed a four-year, $91 million extension with the team in October 2021.

But Bridges understood why Phoenix made the trade.

“It’s KD,” Bridges said, via ESPN. “I get it. I 100 percent get it. That’s just how it is. I would rather say I’d rather be happy that I got traded for KD than probably like somebody else who I didn’t think would be good or something like that. So just being a realist at the end of the day.

“Obviously, I’m going to miss everyone there, miss my home, miss all my friends that’s back there, but I get it. You’re getting Kevin Durant, bro. Maybe I would have probably made that trade too.”

Bridges is averaging 22 points through his first four games with Brooklyn, highlighted by a career-high 45-point outing against the Miami Heat.