Brian Windhorst of ESPN is reporting that Miles Bridges will deny any potential trade, meaning he will stay with the Charlotte Hornets through the end of the season.
Miles Bridges has decided he won’t approve any trades and he will remain with the Charlotte Hornets the rest of the season, agent Rich Paul tells ESPN.
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) February 8, 2024
Bridges will be an unrestricted free agent this summer and the Hornets will retain his Bird Rights.
Signing the qualifying offer last summer had a lot more ramifications for both Bridges and the Hornets than a regular one year contract would have. There are some specific restrictions on trades involving those players that would have greatly hampered the Hornets’ ability to find a suitable trade partner. They are:
- Players playing on a one year qualifying offer (like Bridges) can veto any trade they are a part of
- If those players do get traded, they lose their Bird rights for the acquiring team
In simple terms, if the Hornets did find a trade partner to take on Bridges, he could simply say no and void the trade. If any team were to acquire Bridges via a trade, they’d have to use their own cap space to sign him instead of any rights. That means a team like the Suns, who were the most often associated team to Bridges, would have no means to re-sign him at the end of the season.
That makes a for a very small if not nonexistent pool of potential landing spots for Miles Bridges. He’s also repeatedly said that he wants to stay in Charlotte, so it’s not all that much of a surprise that he’s exercising his power to do just that.
We’ll find out this summer if that’s because of a genuine desire to be in Charlotte long term and if that feeling is mutual. The Hornets will retain Bridges’ Bird rights this summer, so they can go over the cap to sign him. That also makes sign-and-trades a possibility for teams that are going to be over the cap at the start of the offseason. This may just be a leverage play. Or maybe Miles is really just here to stay.
