The Brooklyn Nets will be welcoming Mikal Bridges and the New York Knicks to Barclays Center for the first time since Bridges was traded.

This version of Mikal Bridges looks nothing like the one Brooklyn traded away, but his revamped role could be the key to New York ascending in the East.

Mikal Bridges returns to Brooklyn on Tuesday for the first time since being traded. He played two seasons with the Nets.

Mikal Bridges represents the present for the New York Knicks, who are competing in the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference and aspire to make a lengthy playoff run.

Seven months after the blockbuster trade that sent him from the Brooklyn Nets to the New York Knicks, Mikal Bridges will return to Barclays Center on Tuesday. The Nets’ former top player expects a positive experience when he enters his former arena.

A lot of eyebrows were raised when the Knicks gave up a chest of first-round picks to the Nets to acquire Mikal Bridges last summer.

This past offseason, the Brooklyn Nets decided to fully embrace the rebuilding process as they traded away Mikal Bridges, arguably their best player during the 2023-24 season, to the New York Knicks in exchange for a haul of future first-round picks.