Knicks GIVING UP On Mikal Bridges?! Mike Brown RESPONDS To New Reports... | Knicks News | The Knicks Recap Podcast

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Are the Knicks giving up on Mikal Bridges? Multiple NBA insiders and a former NBA player suggest that the Knicks should. We're going to break down all of these latest reports today.

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Knicks urge to bench Bridges. There's no other way to say this. Mikal Bridges has been awful. This is the worst start to a season of his entire career. That's why one Eastern Conference Scout is urging the Knicks to bench Bridges until further notice. This is what he had to say.

According to this Eastern Conference Scout, he says the following, I think with a lot of these guys there is rust. With Mikal, it's something different. You can see everyone else getting back into the NBA season, but he just is not. They need to think about sitting him until he gets it figured out.

And former NBA player Jeff Teague said on his podcast that Mikal Bridges should not be a starter anymore, especially given the numbers that he's putting up. He blasted Mikal Bridges and the Knicks for keeping him a starter. This is what he had to say.

According to Jeff Teague, he said it was time to bench Mikal Bridges. According to him exactly. It's like so bad. I've never seen nobody go from this to like this. And still a starter. You know what I mean? You ever seen a starter? Like I've never seen. Have y'all ever seen that drastic of a drop off though? I'm just saying it's game 11, right? After five games, a good starter, five or six games, you will see him have like a 15 to 25 point night. But Mikal Bridges definitely isn't doing that. Why is Jeff Teague saying all of this? Look at the numbers Mikal Bridges is putting up this season.

Shout out to New York Basketball on the AppX for giving us this following information. Mikal Bridges is 168th out of 169 players with 75 plus shots and true shooting at 40.2%.

That's awful, guys. He's shooting right now. A career low from the field, 47% in the paint. A career low from mid-range, 15%.

And a career low from three, 26%.

And he has four free throw attempts in 268 minutes played. However, Mike Brown, he doesn't care about any of the noise going on around the Knicks right now. He still wants to keep Mikal Bridges as a starter. And he said the following. According to Mike Brown, Mikal is a starter. It's not a question of that. He, like a lot of players, has had their good moments and not so good moments. Mikal has a proven track record of playing at a pretty high level as a starter in this league. So for me to make a panic decision and change it right now with 11 games in or whatever we are, I'm not feeling it. While Mike Brown is saying that publicly, one Knicks insider believes that Mike Brown's actions are telling a completely different story. According to James L. Edwards with The Athletic, he states the following, Brown is saying the right things. A coach shouldn't publicly give up on a player with Bridges track record so soon, especially on the heels of winning a championship with Bridges playing a major role. Leave that to the fans and the pundits. Yet Brown's actions suggest that he has given up on Bridges for now.

Let's analyze that comment for a second. Given up on Bridges now. This is the reason James L. Edwards is saying that. A few weeks ago, what did Mike Brown say?

Didn't he say that the starting lineup was more or less set, and it was not going to be changed, and the bench unit, they were the one that had to work for minutes? Well he said that. Then after the loss to Cleveland, he was saying something completely different. He was talking about Mikal Bridges and how to best manage his minutes, while also managing the minutes of Landry Shammet and Miles McBride. That doesn't sound like Mikal Bridges' spot on the starting lineup is absolutely secured, especially when he's playing less minutes each and every game. These are the lowest minutes Mikal Bridges has been playing since joining the Knicks, by the way.