Mikal Bridges is an enigma in the modern NBA.
Load management and the epidemic of overuse injuries have made ironmen a rarity in the NBA nowadays. Last season, only 11 players played in all 82 games. Only 22 played in 80+. Only six players started in every single one of their team’s games. Bridges is included with all three, although he played about five seconds in the season finale against Brooklyn to preserve the stat.
What makes Bridges different is that it’s not just one season he’s been a workhorse.
He led the NBA in minutes by a lot in 2024-25, logging 3,036 total minutes, the most by any player since Andrew Wiggins in 2016-17. What makes this more jarring is that Bridges is routinely at the top of the NBA’s minutes leaderboard:
2024-25: 3,036 (1st in NBA)
2023-24: 2,854 (4th)
2022-23: 2,963 (1st)
2021-22: 2,854 (1st)
2020-21: 2,348 (10th)
Since the former lottery pick became a full-time starter in 2020-21, he has logged five consecutive seasons in the top ten, four in the top five, and three at No. 1. Have I mentioned that, since entering the league in 2018, he has played 556 out of 556 games. In college, he played 116 out of 116 possible games. He has played 672 consecutive games, 729 if you include the postseason, since college. No matter how much tread has been on Kal’s tires, he plays every damn night.
It would come as no surprise, then, to see Bridges have by far the longest active streak of consecutive games played. Only Harrison Barnes (304) has even achieved 200 in a row, with him and Bridges being the only players to play in every game in each of the last three seasons. The question is where he ranks in NBA history.
Despite the old days where players frequently battled through ailments and tried to play every night, Bridges is already in the top 15 all-time. If he plays another 82 games in the 2025-26 season, he’ll shoot up to 8th all-time.
Terry Tyler is next on the list at 574. He played every game of his first seven seasons from 1978-85 with the Detroit Pistons before his streak ended due to a long free agency that saw him not sign with the Sacramento Kings until November.
Three-time NBA champion B.J. Armstrong is next at 577. Armstrong missed one game in February 1990 as a rookie with the Chicago Bulls and wasn’t sidelined again until suffering a knee injury seven years later as a member of the Golden State Warriors. If Armstrong didn’t sit out that one game as a rookie, his streak would’ve been well over 600.
James Donaldson is in 11th at 586, beginning his streak towards the end of his rookie year with the Seattle Supersonics in February 1981. The one-time all-star even joined an exclusive list of players to play 83 games in 1985-86 due to a midseason trade. In the midst of his lone all-star campaign with the Dallas Mavericks in 1987-88, Donaldson was suspended for a game on April 7, 1988, ending his streak. Without that suspension, he would’ve played 645 in a row until a knee injury in February 1989.
To enter the top ten, Bridges will have to play in each of the Knicks’ first 54 games. No. 54 would come on February 10 against the Pacers. In a tie for ninth are Hall of Famers Jack Twyman and John Stockton. Twyman’s streak lasted from his NBA debut in November 1955 with the Rochester Royals and would last through Halloween 1963. By then, Rochester had moved to Cincinnati, and Twyman would make six all-star teams.
Stockton, the NBA’s all-time leader in assists and steals, is maybe the most durable player in the history of the league. He played 82 games in 16 of his 19 seasons and also played every game of the strike-shortened 1998-99 season. He only missed 22 games in his entire career, four in 1989-90 and 18 in 1997-98. He even finished his career with 442 consecutive games from 1997 to 2003. That streak started when he was 35 and ended when he retired just after his 41st birthday.
If Bridges were to get through 2025-26, he would also pass Andre Miller at 632. His streak would start in January 2003 and end on December 7, 2010. Two nights earlier, Miller, then a member of the Portland Trail Blazers, blasted Blake Griffin on the block in an altercation that bled on for too long. That would lead to a streak-ending suspension that would be the only game Miller missed until New Year’s 2014. If he weren’t suspended, Miller’s ensuing 239-game streak would make it 872 in a row, the third-longest streak in NBA history.
That would place just seven names in front of Bridges on the all-time list. Here’s what he needs to do to pass them:
Harry Gallatin (682): Game 47 of the 2026-27 season.
Bill Laimbeer (685): Game 50 of the 2026-27 season.
Dolph Schayes (706): Game 71 of the 2026-27 season.
Michael Cage (736): Game 19 of the 2027-28 season.
Red Kerr (844): Game 43 of the 2028-29 season.
Randy Smith (906): Game 23 of the 2029-30 season.
To even get to second place, Bridges would need to play another 341 consecutive games in a row. This would take him to December 2029, when he’ll be 33 years old. That’s doable, but it’s asking a lot.
But what’s it going to take to earn A.C. Green’s crown? Well, he’s not even halfway there.
It’ll take 637 more games to reach 1,193. That’s 7.76 seasons.
Assuming we still play 82 games a year once the NBA expands (and no lockout/COVID-type things shortening the season), Bridges would have to play in every single regular-season game until…
Around March 1, 2033. He’ll need to last 63 games into the 2032-33 season at the age of 36.
That’s how unbreakable A.C. Green’s streak is. Even for the most durable player in the NBA, it just doesn’t seem possible.
Now, all of this theorizing could blow up in smoke with one turned ankle, illness, or suspension, but Bridges is as much of a lock to play a full 82 every season. But at some point, he won’t. The mileage will eventually catch up, but even if it doesn’t, there’s too much randomness for him to ever get to the record. I think he’ll end in the top five, but anything beyond that will take unprecedented durability.
