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Mikal Bridges' consecutive games streak lives despite missing game – NBA.com
The NBA's leading 'ironman' missed the 1st game of his NBA career, but still could end up playing 83 games this season.
Brian Mahoney | The Associated Press
Mikal Bridges missed the 1st game of his NBA career, but still could end up playing 83 games this season.
NEW YORK (AP) — Mikal Bridges’ consecutive games played streak lives on, even after he was forced to miss a game last week for the first time in his NBA career.
Bridges was acquired by the Brooklyn Nets from Phoenix last Thursday in the blockbuster trade for Kevin Durant. The deal was approved by the league too late for Bridges to play that night in the Nets’ game against Chicago, so he had to watch from the bench and was listed as “inactive — trade pending” in the official box score.
But the league determined that since Bridges wasn’t eligible to play, it shouldn’t count as a missed game. So his streak, the longest active one in the league, reached 367 games when the Nets visited the New York Knicks on Monday night.
Bridges also never missed a game in college, playing in all 116 at Villanova. Cam Johnson, Bridges’ close friend in Phoenix who came with him in the trade, joked that Bridges was “shaking” at the idea of not being able to play Thursday.
“He was like, ’I’ve got to get out there, I’ve got to get out there,’” Johnson said.
Bridges can still play in 83 games this season, one more than an NBA team’s schedule. He had already played in 56 games with the Suns and the Nets had 27 remaining beginning Saturday.
Nets coach Jacque Vaughn recently said he wanted players to view themselves like Cal Ripken Jr., baseball’s career leader in consecutive games played, and be able to have their name written in pen in the lineup every night.
Now he has the NBA’s current version of Ripken.
“Some things as a coach you want don’t want to think about and that’s one of the things,” Vaughn said. “Like, you want your dudes available on a nightly basis and Mikal Bridges is a guy that takes pride in that. He’s done it his whole career, so when you’re thinking about game planning and what’s next for the team, when you can pen a guy in on a nightly basis, that eases the mind of a coach.”
Brooklyn receives Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, 4 first-round draft picks and a 2028 first-round pick swap in return.
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Brooklyn receives Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, 4 first-round draft picks and a 2028 first-round pick swap in return.
In the wake of the 2023 NBA trade deadline, which teams in the East stand out most after their moves?
Harden was traded from Brooklyn at the 2022 trade deadline. One year later, Durant and Irving were also gone.
See where all 30 teams rank as we enter Week 18 of the 2022-23 season.
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