Suns culture, roster fit are tough sell with Miles Bridges acquisition

The Phoenix Suns acquiring Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and if you wanted to focus solely on either the culture or basketball fit as the reason why, you’d have enough weight to your argument before combining the two in totality.

Bridges was acquired in exchange for Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale and a 2033 unprotected first-round pick. Phoenix also gets a 2029 first-rounder and a 2027 second-round pick. The 2029 first-rounder is one the Suns included in the previous Mark Williams trade, per ESPN’s Shams Charania, a selection that is the least favorable between Cleveland, Minnesota, Utah and now Charlotte as well. The Hornets added that extra provision with this deal. Phoenix still owns the 2027 version of this selection.

Needless to say, that is a far worse asset than the pick the Suns gave away. Even if the pick in 2033 lands in a worse draft position than the one Phoenix acquired in 2029, its current value on the trade market is way higher. And while Allen and O’Neale had their limitations, those are two good rotation pieces.

It is quite an uninspiring return for a fairly pricey trade package.

To start, Phoenix has done an excellent job establishing what a “Suns player” is through assembling a hard-working group of individuals. Amassing this collection led to a team that 50 games into last season played harder than anyone in the league, establishing an identity for the team in the process.

We have heard owner Mat Ishbia and general manager Brian Gregory refer to the traits they are looking for. “High character” is one routinely repeated.

This gave the fanbase a group that was quite easy to root for and latch onto, not only this year but in the coming seasons knowing this regime would keep bringing in that type of player.

That sense of faith, however, has now hit a snag. While that won’t be the case for every fan, Bridges’ history of domestic violence allegations is a major comedown from that momentum the organization ratcheted up the last year.

To say there is no place in our world for what Bridges was accused of doing feels like the largest of understatements, but to act like I’m more qualified as some type of arbiter on morality just because I’m someone who talks about sports for a living doesn’t make my opinion more or less valid than yours when it comes to that or even sports in general.

Prefacing that, Bridges’ history of allegations is deeply unsettling, and at least for me, puts into question what the Suns have been standing on.

Bridges pleaded no contest to a felony domestic violence charge in November 2023. In June 2022, Bridges was arrested and charged with one felony count of injuring a child’s parent and two felony counts of child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death.

The woman, who was Bridges’ wife at the time, posted pictures to Instagram of what appeared to be her sustained injuries and hospital report. What appeared to be the document listed the injuries as a nasal fracture, rib contusion, neck muscle strain and multiple bruises. She said “she was choked until I went to sleep” and had a “severe concussion.”

Bridges’ plea included a three-year probation, 52 weeks of domestic violence counseling, 52 weeks of parenting classes, 100 hours of community service and weekly narcotics testing. He and the woman were to both maintain their own custody over their two children, while a 10-year protective order was in place that required Bridges to stay at least 100 yards away and have no contact with the woman. Visitation or exchange of the children was to be done through a neutral third party.

A few months prior to the plea and a little over a year after he was arrested, Bridges was accused of violating that protective order while a custody exchange was taking place between the two children. The woman alleged that Bridges threw pool table balls at a vehicle while both she and the children were inside it, kicking it and yelling as well.

This occurred while Bridges was already serving a 30-game suspension from the NBA after the league did its own investigation into the allegations.

Bridges later turned himself in, and after a court hearing in February 2024, all three charges it brought forth were dropped due to inconsistent victim statements, per court records obtained by The Charlotte Observer.

Before his plea and the other incident, Bridges apologized in July 2023.

“I want to apologize to everybody for the pain and embarrassment that I have caused everyone, especially my family,” Bridges said. “This year away I’ve used to prioritize going to therapy and becoming the best person I can be — someone that my family and everyone here can be proud of.”

There is a ton more to this situation, one that is still ongoing with recent developments of Bridges being granted a temporary restraining order against the woman after she allegedly showed up to one of this games, but to act like that in any way grants even a sliver of justification to the allegations is ridiculous.

And then there is the basketball fit.

This move did accomplish one of two major concerns with Phoenix’s roster. It got bigger on the perimeter, moving on from two of its 6-foot-5 players in exchange for an explosive 6-foot-7 wing with a stocky build.

All this did, however, is magnify the other concern and create new ones.

Bridges’ primary contribution is scoring the basketball. With the large fit issues surrounding how the score-first mentality of Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks play off Devin Booker, this multiplies that. The duo of Allen and O’Neale created redundancy for Phoenix based on what it needed to prioritize in its rotation, but now there is even more redundancy with score-first options surrounding Booker.

Compare him to any of the other potential options as the fifth starter next year and when it comes to how a specific skillset helps out the overall balance for Booker on both ends, it’s the worst amongst the group.

Bridges is not bringing floor spacing like Allen or O’Neale did. He is a career 33.8% 3-point shooter and on catch-and-shoot looks the last two years clocked in at 35.9%. Allen’s number was 40.9% and O’Neale was at 41.8%.

Bridges is not bringing secondary playmaking like Collin Gillespie does. He is a solid passer and can handle the ball. And unlike Green and Brooks, he boasts an average-to-above-average assist-to-usage ratio the last four years. But it’s merely just fine, and Bridges’ rim rate is trending down to mediocre the last two seasons, like his free-throw rate. If anything, he’s similar to Allen as a playmaker.

Bridges is not bringing a signature defensive presence like Rasheer Fleming or Jordan Goodwin do. He is somewhere around that, again, average-to-above-average standing as a defender, and that might be generous. He uses his strength well and gets active but is prone to mistakes involving lack of engagement both on and off the ball. The Hornets used him on marquee matchups a fair bit and you got the sense Bridges wasn’t able to be a deterrent most of the time. Fleming and Goodwin have shown the ability to do that.

Bridges is not bringing great rebounding like Goodwin does. His career high in offensive rebounds per game is 1.4, from his second season back in 2019. That was 88 misses grabbed in 1,995 minutes. Goodwin last season picked up 138 in 1,572 minutes.

To extend this into a possession battle and hustle thing, Bridges had 70 stocks (steals/blocks) last year, while Goodwin amounted to 120. Even Fleming accumulated 43, over half of Bridges’ totals on nearly a third of the total minutes, 673. Bridges’ 99 deflections last year would have ranked ninth on Phoenix’s roster. Goodwin (260), Gillespie (202) and O’Neale (172) were miles ahead of him.

On an emerging Hornets team with its fair share of scoring talent already, the on/off numbers told this overall tale. Charlotte outscored teams by 3.5 points per 100 possessions when Bridges played but that number bumped to 7.7 when Bridges was on the bench.

The hope for the Suns will be that Bridges ups his rim pressure back from the start of his NBA journey while having the best season of his career with shooting, rebounding and defense. That’s a lot to ask for out of a 28-year-old. I liked the idea of another semi-risky swing for the Suns this summer instead of waiting for next offseason to do so, pitching Zion Williamson, but I just don’t see the individual upside in Bridges.

And as for the aforementioned new problems, the Suns also have almost no shooting now.

By trading Allen and O’Neale for a guy defenses are going to leave open in the corner, the spacing for not only Booker but even Green becomes a problem. This doesn’t just apply to the starting lineup. Gillespie is now the only knockdown shooter in the entire rotation.

Remember, Booker is what he is in that department now. Brooks was only at 34.4%, a downtick from his improvements the last few years, and Green continued his poor career numbers. Haywood Highsmith is in the Goodwin, Fleming and Ryan Dunn category, where you’ll take league average. First-round pick Koa Peat was available at No. 30 for Phoenix in a trade-up because he can’t shoot.

While there were justifiable concerns when it looked like the Suns were going to run it back, that roster still made some real tangible sense together. This one doesn’t at all, and raises the feeling that there is another move coming for everything to slide into place. If Green or Brooks are moved, that at least creates more touches for Bridges’ No. 1 skill in scoring.

Phoenix will definitely add a shooter somewhere. This opened up just over $6 million in salary cap space, so the Suns are now nearly $12 million clear of the second apron and can use their taxpayer midlevel exception in free agency without sweating the second apron they are hard-capped to, meaning they legally cannot go over it anymore.

There is also the looming extension for Bridges. He can get one right now and is on a $22.8 million expiring contract. But, uh, so can Brooks. Are the Suns ready to commit long-term money to a core of Booker, Brooks and Bridges? As seemingly the last big push with Booker? It would be much easier to swallow if it wasn’t for the $23 million in dead money Phoenix has the next four seasons.

Regardless, there has to be much more here for the Suns to break out of where they are projected, somewhere between 40-50 wins without much real optimism for a deep playoff run. For now and perhaps the foreseeable future, that’ll have to come internally, and the value on the trade reeks at the moment given an unprotected first-round pick and two good rotation players was the price.

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