While the Golden State Warriors latest pipe dream of acquiring Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James grabbed the bulk of trade rumor headlines on Friday, the Dubs were tied to another wing. Per Sam Amick
of The Athletic, the Warriors, Phoenix Suns, and Milwaukee Bucks are among several teams interested in Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges. A source told Amick the Hornets are eyeing at least one, “maybe two” first-round picks in a deal.
“As for Hornets that might be on the move, veteran forward Miles Bridges is drawing significant interest, league sources told The Athletic,” Amick wrote. “The Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns are all known to be among the interested parties, though it remains to be seen if any team can compel the Hornets to give Bridges up. Charlotte’s lack of interest in the Bucks’ Kyle Kuzma is known to be an obstacle to a potential deal between those two teams. Draft capital is also a pivotal part of the conversation.“
The Warriors interest in Bridges is disheartening given his history of intimate partner violence. Bridges has been arrested multiple times after incidents with the mother of his children and has been convicted of felony domestic violence. Bridges’ first arrest led him to miss the 2022-23 NBA season before the league handed him a 30-game suspension.
However, as is unfortunately commonplace, the league has ignored red flags and allowed him to continue playing as if nothing happened.
CONTENT WARNING: Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Violence
On June 29, 2022, Bridges was arrested and charged with assaulting his then wife in front of their two children. Following the arrest, his wife publicly shared pictures on her Instagram, showing bruising and cuts all over her body. She also included an image of a medical report that listed her injuries as, “assault by strangulation, brain concussion, closed fracture of nasal bone, contusion of rib, multiple bruises, strain of neck muscle.”
Prosecutors originally charged Bridges with three felonies stemming from the incident, but Bridges reached a deal with prosecutors that allowed him to avoid jail time. He was ultimately convicted of a single felony domestic violence charge and agreed to a long list of conditions alongside three months of probation.
It was unclear whether Bridges would play in the NBA again. After sitting out for a season and receiving a punishment from the league, he ultimately returned to the Hornets. As Bridges faced pushback for his return, she publicly defended him. However, the victim is the mother of Bridges’ two children, creating a complicated economic reality and one that later events create questions around.
“I want to apologize to everybody for the pain and embarrassment that I have caused everyone, especially my family,” Bridges said in his first public statements upon his return. “This year away I’ve used to prioritize going to therapy and becoming the best person I can be — someone that my family and everyone here can be proud of.”
Yet, in the same year that Bridges and his ex-partner made those statements, behind the scenes activity seriously undermines any idea that he underwent significant growth. One of the conditions of Bridges’ was honoring a 10-year protective order to have no contact and stay at least 100 yards away from the victim. Less than a year later, Bridges was arrested for violating that order on two separate incidents.
The first arrest warrant said Bridges had tried to contact her on social media and her phone in January of 2023, a clear violation of the order. He was then charged with multiple crimes after an incident where his former partner’s windshield was shattered in October. She originally said he threw pool balls at her window with her and their children inside. She would eventually retract and contradict her original statements, leading the charges to be dropped. Still, the fact that he was violating the protective order less than a year after his plea agreement, while claiming to have learned and reformed, raises serious questions.
Meanwhile Warriors forward Draymond Green, who attended the same college as Bridges, publicly defended him throughout the process. Green was working out with Bridges the week following his felony charges. Then, after Bridges was involved in an on-court altercation in a game with the Warriors, Green went out of his way postgame to say “Miles can do no wrong to me.” For someone as media savvy as Draymond, it’s hard to believe he did not strategically choose those words to spark reaction because of Bridges’ domestic violence history.
Bridges would be the most high-profile player the Warriors have acquired with a history of intimate partner violence under owner Joe Lacob. However, he would not be the first.
The Warriors signed Kendrick Nunn as an undrafted free agent out of Oakland University to a partially guaranteed contract and kept him in the G-League until he was signed away by the Miami Heat. Nunn had been dismissed from the University of Illinois after pleading guilty to misdemeanor domestic battery. The charges were related to an incident where a woman said Nunn struck her in the head, pushed her to the floor, and held her by the neck.
In the 2022-23 season, the Warriors signed Anthony Lamb to a two-way contract and eventually converted him to an NBA contract even though a classmate of Lamb’s had said he rape her while they were in college. Warriors general manager Bob Myers claimed the team had done due diligence related to the case, but the Warriors only contacted the NBA and other teams, never reaching out to the woman who had reported the incident to her University’s Title IX office. Steve Kerr never addressed the case directly either, and was highly complimentary of Lamb to media.
