Come inside my blue and orange mind – yeah, that sounds bad, but the doctors are more bemused than anything else. You’d think a brain discoloration would give me some kind of superpower or special intelligence; mine just makes me think about 2010 Raymond Felton and spontaneously rap parts of “We Gonna Make It.” On the eve of the NBA Draft, our Knicks acquired Mikal Bridges in exchange for Bojan Bogdanovic, four unprotected and five total first-round picks. Sheesh, I picked a hilarious week to start blogging here at Poasting & Toasting. There will be time for measured analysis of this decision and its many historic implications, and this is for sure not that. Here, instead, is this correspondent’s live and delirious processing of the Bridges move.
Adrian Wojnarowski tweets on whatever you call Twitter at 9:58 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I confess, it was kind of cool when our phones all sprang to life and started displaying Timberland summer chukkas and a little Kith hat.
- Everyone seemed to get the news right away – are we really not watching Beat Shazam on FOX?!
- How is this really happening? Jay Wright must have won a bet with Leon Rose or something. Do we think Leon uses Fibonacci or Martingale on the baccarat table? Why does a card game have the same name as the cologne Latto sings about? Do casino tables smell good?
- Maybe the Knicks are doing a modern-day staging of some lesser-known Shakespeare play. Maybe God is a 2K franchise mode simmer who went to Villanova. What did he or she major in?
- Will Knicks facilities begin accepting Nova Bucks™? Maybe we can apply for a customized Wildcard by the Chase Bridge. I want mine with the Dipset crest on it.
- The Knicks are going to be so good. This is amazing and I am elated.
- Wait, how many draft picks?
- Jrue Holiday went for three first-rounders and two pick swaps. Mikal Bridges is three years younger than Jrue was when Milwaukee traded for him, and the Bucks immediately won the title after that move. This is chill.
- Didn’t Kevin Durant just go for four unprotected picks? Well for one thing, if this team ever traded for Kevin Durant, I do fear the “HEY KD, DON’T YOU REGRET NOT COMING TO THE KNICKS” guy would spontaneously ascend to a higher plane, and I wanna meet that dude before he does that.
- Also, the key asset from the Durant trade was Mikal friggin’ Bridges, who we’ve unanimously established as the best basketball player of all time.
- Those guys must be going wild on their group chat. Which of the four most likely has the green text bubble? I bet it’s popping in there, like, just the right amount of GIFs and memes.
- Maybe they share Wordle or Immaculate Grid scores every morning. They definitely share “Which Sex and the City Character are You” results. Mikal is such a Samantha, right?!
- The Knicks haven’t traded with the Nets in more than four decades, when they swapped a second-round pick in the 1983 Draft for backup center for Len Elmore. The pick became Tom Sluby – a fun name to say out loud or even croon into a vocoder on your balcony, but never an actual player for the New Jersey Nets. Elmore posted a -0.2 value over replacement rating in one season with New York.
- Do we think Sluby is pronounced SLOOB or SLUHHHB?
- This is a sign to do more stuff with your college friends. Maybe mine could start a New Jack Swing group.
- Can we uncut Omari Spellman now?
- Is there a single part of Brooklyn that Mikal Bridges didn’t get instantly more popular in? Is Bergen Beach Nets-pilled like that? Imagine the streets saying that Mikal can’t show his face at Smorgasburg anymore.
- Remember when Jay Z said “the Nets could go 0-82 and [he’d] look at you like that sh*t gravy?” I hope Roc Nation sends 100 thousand tons of chicken stock to Sean Marks’ office, because the Nets may actually do it with this roster. Is that too much chicken stock? Who cares, they may need to use it to fill out roster space.
- Will Mikal miss the “signature scent” of the Barclays Center? How will he adapt to the official smell of MSG, that enchanting perfume mix of chicken cutlet and zaza smoke?
- What is Mikal’s worst basketball-reference nickname? Do we have to call him Noodles? Are we serious with Inspector Go Go Gadget? One of the listed monikers is Brooklyn Bridges, hahahahaha, get that F all the way OH.
- A few new Knicks-specific suggestions: Mikal Bingbong, Thibs’ Dream Girl, Manhattan Bridges, Washington Bridges, Verrazzano Bridges, etc. And there are always a few random/nonsensical ones, so let’s go with The Platypus, Apple Cider Vinegar and Mr. Plays Basketball.