The Nets traded Mikal Bridges. And turbocharged their rebuild.
Bridges got shipped over the East River to the rival Knicks, and Brooklyn brought back a king’s ransom of draft picks reminiscent of the haul they got for Kevin Durant.
In a separate deal they got several of their own natural picks back from Houston, signaling a pivot to a full-on rebuild.
The Nets agreed to send Bridges and a 2026 second-round pick to the Garden for four unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027, 2029, 2031), a 2025 protected first-rounder via Milwaukee, a 2028 unprotected pick swap, a 2025 second-round pick and veteran shooter Bojan Bogdanovic.
“This is crazy lol,” Bridges tweeted as the news broke, first reported by ESPN and confirmed by The Post.
In a different move Tuesday night, Brooklyn got back their own 2026 first-rounder from Houston and saw the Rockets give up the right to swap the Nets’ 2025 first-rounder.
Brooklyn had to give up a 2027 first-round pick via Phoenix and the right to swap for the Suns’ 2025 first-rounder. Houston also got the more favorable of the Dallas and Phoenix picks in 2029.
Since being the centerpiece of the Durant deal, Bridges had been one of the more coveted assets in the entire league.
The Nets already had turned down an offer of four first-rounders from Memphis and another of most of their own traded picks back from Houston.
But this haul showed why general manager Sean Marks and Nets owner Joe Tsai had been reluctant to move Bridges … until now.
Sources told The Post during the season that Bridges not only wanted to get to the Knicks, but quietly angled to make that happen so he could reunite with former Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo.
Still, the Knicks had to blow the opposing offers out of the water to pry Bridges out of Brooklyn, and they did.
It marked the first trade between the Nets and Knicks since 1983.
In April, Bridges had insisted he expected to be back in Brooklyn.
“Yeah, 100 percent. I don’t think I look at anywhere else,” Bridges said. “I don’t think about my contract at all. Just try and come back, and my biggest thing this summer is to be better than I was this year. Take a lot from what I learned.
“Obviously it was not what I wanted and what we wanted as a team, but you can’t really sulk about it. Didn’t play your best. That’s cool. Might get some hate for it, but just get in the gym, get better and learn from it. My intention is definitely to stay here. I got nowhere else to be.”
Now he’ll be in Manhattan while Brooklyn will be rebuilding.
Bridges, who averaged 19.6 points and 4.5 assists this past season, was going to see his value decrease.
Part of his attraction to other franchises was his team-friendly contract, which he’s already burned halfway through.
The small forward is owed $23.3 million next season and $24.9 million in the final campaign of his current four-year $90.9 million contract.
Bridges is eligible to sign a two-year extension on Oct. 1, and can ink a three-year, $113 million extension in six months.
The closer he gets to the end of that pact, the more his stock would plummet.
Marks cashed in Tuesday.
Bridges had been critical of the team’s direction right before coach Jacque Vaughn got fired over the All-Star break, and the Nets struggled to a 32-50 finish under interim Kevin Ollie.
It marked their worst record since 2017-18.
Now, after hiring Jordi Fernandez — voted the best assistant in the NBA by league GMs — Brooklyn have a cache with which to rebuild.
The Nets will be flush with salary-cap space next summer when Ben Simmons’ $40 million albatross of a contract comes off the books.
Now they’ll not only have money but the richest trove of draft assets in the entire league over the next several years.
Bogdanovic, 35, returns to Brooklyn, where he started his NBA career in 2014.
He averaged 10.4 points in 29 games off the bench for the Knicks.