Following Monday’s article discussing the value Duke center Wendell Carter Jr. might bring to the Chicago Bulls, part three focuses on Mikal Bridges from Villanova.
To provide some balance to the recent upswing in vocal support of draft prospects Mizzou wing Michael Porter Jr. and Texas center Mohamed Bamba, this piece will focus on the most optimistic outcomes that Bridges might bring to a Bulls squad looking for a franchise piece.
Fair warning: this piece is centered on the unbridled optimism that whoever the Bulls pick will be the right pick. These aren’t realistic projections of players’ floors or ceilings, but rather best-case scenarios.
Mikal Bridges
For Mikal Bridges, the 6’7” wing and two-time national champion from Nova, there are few questions surrounding his athleticism and defense.
With a 7’2” wingspan and a penchant for whizzing around the court, disrupting plays, Bridges’ impact is impossible to miss. He redshirted his freshman year and filled out his lanky frame throughout his career at Nova, transforming his body to an NBA level.
Improvement is the key word surrounding Bridges, who is one of the very few multi-year college players projected to go in the lottery. He’s an elite defensive forward who became an excellent shooter his last two years in school, knocking down 43.5% of his threes on six attempts per game.
The biggest knock against Bridges is the same one used against Carter: that he’ll probably be a solid player, but doesn’t possess the high ceilings of other players that could be available at the seven spot.
But the framework that is Mikal Bridges is by no means set in stone yet.
Optimistic Floor
Even if Bridges never addresses some of his weaker points, he still gives you a phenomenal 3&D player who isn’t at all a liability handling or passing the ball
Of every prospect the Bulls are likely to draft, Bridges is probably the easiest fit to see for Chicago, aside from perhaps Bamba. On offense, he can be a low usage wing that you can run through screens to get good looks, or you can get him the ball in motion as a cutter
On defense, he’s a terror guarding the one through three spots. His positioning and stance on defense is superb, and he has a knack for using his length to recover when speedy guards get a step on him,
If he can continue to develop his body and get stronger, he has the potential to be able to guard power forwards, as well small ball centers. At the very least, he should be able to hang around with most bigs in spurts. Starting him alongside Kris Dunn and Zach LaVine would allow the Bulls to better hide LaVine on defense, with Dunn and Bridges taking the harder matchups.
Optimistic Ceiling
Bridges is an advanced dribble away from being an all-around star at the next level. As of now, he’s inconsistent shooting off the dribble and doesn’t have the handles of the great forwards who play in the league today.
These are same deficiencies that plague Michael Porter Jr., who also lacks the dribbling that would likely propel him to his promised superstardom. For whatever reason, the general assumption is that Porter will figure that part of his game out and Bridges won’t.
And, to be fair, Porter is two years younger than Bridges, who will turn 22 this August, and dribbling is one of the most difficult skills to become elite at in the NBA. Porter is also a lot bigger.
But, Bridges proved at Villanova that he is absolutely still capable of improving himself. He has an excellent work ethic and made a huge leap his junior and final year in college, evidence that his ceiling might go beyond the 3&D box he’s been pushed into.
He can finish above the rim, and his long wingspan should help him translate his inside game to the next level. Even if Bridges doesn’t necessarily become an elite dribbler, he can still realistically improve enough to become a solid slasher, which would add an element to his offense that could propel him to a higher level than many project him to reach.