Knicks Won’t Sign Mikal Bridges To Extension Until They Know Giannis Antetokounmpo Is 100% Staying With Bucks

The New York Knicks won’t sign Mikal Bridges to an extension until they know Giannis Antetokounmpo is 100% staying with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Antetokounmpo hasn’t requested a trade from the Bucks, but if he does, the Knicks will pursue the future Hall of Famer. 

“With the Knicks and all the other teams kind of keeping an eye on Milwaukee and what may or may not happen there, I think one of the reasons why he (Bridges) has not been extended yet is because once you extend him, you cannot trade him for six months,” Ian Begley of SNY said on The Putback. “And I think until the Giannis stuff is fully settled, and I don’t think it’s fully settled yet, as much as I’m sure Bucks fans hate to hear that because I would hate to hear that if I was a Bucks fan, but I don’t think it’s fully settled yet.

“And so as teams continue to keep an eye on that, continue to at least plan with that somewhere in the back of their mind, I think that’s why you haven’t seen Bridges extended yet. When he does extend, I think that would tell you Giannis is put to bed, is off the table in a sense.”

Bridges is eligible to sign an extension with the Knicks. The max is four years, $156 million.

The Knicks made the conference finals this year for the first time since 2000. They lost to the Indiana Pacers in six games. 

Tom Thibodeau was fired as head coach despite going 226-174 in the regular season and 24-23 in the postseason and winning the 2021 Coach of the Year Award. He was replaced by Mike Brown. 

Milwaukee reached the mountain top in 2021, winning the championship against the Phoenix Suns. However, the franchise has won just one postseason series since then. 

After the Bucks lost to the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the 2025 playoffs, Shams Charania of ESPN reported that Antetokounmpo was open-minded about leaving Milwaukee.