KNICKS, NETS MAKE ADDITIONS TO BLOCKBUSTER MIKAL BRIDGES TRADE
The Knicks intend to sign-and-trade Shake Milton to the Nets as part of the blockbuster trade that will send Mikal Bridges from Brooklyn to New York, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports. Milton will receive a three-year, $9M contract, but only the first season is guaranteed.
New York will also be including Mamadi Diakite in the trade, league sources tell Fred Katz of The Athletic. The Knicks have been looking for ways to add salary to the original framework to avoid being hard capped at the first tax apron ($178.1M), Katz notes. By aggregating salaries, the Knicks will instead be hard capped at the second apron ($188.9M).
The Nets will be sending the Knicks Keita Bates-Diop as part of the expanded deal, per Charania.
As cap expert Yossi Gozlan explains (Twitter links), the Knicks can give Milton a $3.1M salary for 2024-25 using his non-Bird rights. They will also be partially guaranteeing Diakite’s contract, which is currently non-guaranteed, to make the math work on sending out more money than they receive, which automatically triggers a first apron hard cap. Bates-Diop will not count as an outgoing salary-matching piece because he fits into the minimum-salary exception.
After the trade, Gozlan projects the Knicks to have approximately $172M in salary committed to 11 players. That means they’ll be about $16.9M below the second apron, giving the team the financial flexibility to use the taxpayer mid-level exception and potentially re-sign Precious Achiuwa, who is an unrestricted free agent.
Here’s a rundown of the full trade, at least what has been reported thus far:
- Knicks to acquire Mikal Bridges, Keita Bates-Diop and a 2026 second-round pick. Again, Bates-Diop does not count for salary matching purposes because he can be acquired using the minimum-salary exception.
- Nets to acquire Bojan Bogdanovic, Shake Milton, Mamadi Diakite, the Knicks’ 2025 first-round pick, the Bucks’ 2025 first-round pick (top-four protected), the Knicks’ 2027 first-round pick, the Knicks’ 2029 first-round pick, the Knicks’ 2031 first-round pick, the right to swap a 2028 first-round pick for the Knicks’ 2028 first-round pick, and the Nets’ 2025 second-round pick.
According to Gozlan, the Nets will create a $23.3M trade exception (Bridges’ salary) if they absorb Bogdanovic’s salary into an existing TPE worth $20.3M.
Milton, 27, was a productive bench player for Philadelphia for several seasons before signing with Minnesota last summer. The Wolves traded him to the Pistons before the February deadline, and he was subsequently waived, later signing a rest-of-season deal with the Knicks in early March as a free agent. He only appeared in four regular season games with New York.
Diakite, also 27, has bounced around the NBA over the course of his four seasons, suiting up for the Bucks, Thunder, Cavaliers, Spurs and Knicks on a variety of different contracts.
Bates-Diop, 28, has played for the Wolves, Nuggets, Spurs, Suns and Nets over the course of his seven years in the NBA. He exercised his player option for ’24-25 last month.
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