{"id":84991,"date":"2024-07-06T17:17:56","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T21:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=84991"},"modified":"2024-07-06T17:17:56","modified_gmt":"2024-07-06T21:17:56","slug":"hornets-re-sign-controversial-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/06\/hornets-re-sign-controversial-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets Re-Sign Controversial Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Clippers were the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/02\/nba-rumors-controversial-forward-linked-to-clippers\/\" target=\"_self\">rumored favorites<\/a> to land free agent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bridgmi02.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-06_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Miles Bridges<\/a>, but the Charlotte Hornets were the ones who ended up re-signing the forward. Let&#8217;s look at Bridges&#8217; latest contract and what his re-signing means for the Hornets as a team.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Free agent F Miles Bridges has agreed on a three-year, $75 million deal to return to the Charlotte Hornets, sources tell ESPN. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8uQ2fLaDDC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/8uQ2fLaDDC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/1809662444119421046?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 6, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Hornets Re-Sign Controversial Forward<\/h2>\n<h3>Bridges&#8217; Contract<\/h3>\n<p>Bridges&#8217; deal is for three years and $75 million. This has to make one wonder: why so much money?<\/p>\n<p>Up to this point in his career, Bridges has made $24 million and will be getting paid $23 million next season. In reality, he shouldn&#8217;t have been paid so little last year. During the 2021-22 season, Bridges broke out onto the scene, averaging 20.2 points and 7.0 rebounds per game. However, he sat out the entire 2022-23 season, dealing with charges of domestic violence and abuse. Viewed as somewhat tainted goods, the only offer Bridges received after his year off from the NBA was a qualifying offer from the Hornets for $7.9 million. He proved that he hadn&#8217;t lost a step with the year off, putting up 21.0 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. The Hornets likely gave him so much money because he was yet to have a serious payday.<\/p>\n<p>However, one has to wonder who the Hornets were bidding against. While the Clippers were rumored to be in talks, those talks were for a sign-and-trade to acquire Bridges, as they didn&#8217;t have the cap space to pull it off. The teams that did have cap space in free agency this year weren&#8217;t going to sign him to a large deal, and the teams that didn&#8217;t have cap space would&#8217;ve only been able to acquire him if it was a priority, which it wasn&#8217;t. That begs the question: would anyone other than the Hornets have offered Bridges this much money? Still viewed as tainted goods, I don&#8217;t think so. The Hornets likely could have signed him for far less than they did.<\/p>\n<h3>Bridges&#8217; Fit On the Court<\/h3>\n<p>Returning to Charlotte, Bridges returns to a system that fits him perfectly basketball-wise. He can run pick-and-rolls with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/ballla01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-06_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LaMelo Ball<\/a>, throwing down monstrous dunks like he&#8217;s used to. However, he will have to earn his time on the court. The Hornets have plenty of forwards ready to compete, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/millebr02.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-06_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Miller<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willigr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-06_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Grant Williams<\/a>, and rookie <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/salauti01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tidjane Sala\u00fcn<\/a>. Bridges needs to keep building off his past success if he wants to stay on the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Clippers were the rumored favorites to land free agent Miles Bridges, but the Charlotte Hornets were the ones who ended up re-signing the forward. Let&#8217;s look at Bridges&#8217; latest contract and what his re-signing means for the Hornets as a team. Free agent F Miles Bridges has agreed on a three-year, $75 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5154,"featured_media":85002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,7,62,3],"tags":[49059,1148],"class_list":["post-84991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-hornets","category-nba","category-news","tag-2024-nba-free-agents","tag-miles-bridges"],"modified_by":"Kayla Fonte","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}