With the 2022 NBA Draft now behind us, teams are turning their focus to free agency, which starts in a few days. This year, a lot of people are going to be keeping an eye on the restricted free agents of the class.
Restricted free agency is sometimes tough to navigate. Teams have the ability to match any offer sheet that a restricted free agent of theirs receives, but they have a window of time to make their decision. Not wanting to have their money potentially tied up only to come away empty-handed, teams will not always pursue restricted free agents and look to other options.
A few restricted free agents have already garnered a lot of attention about where they could end up. One of those players is Miles Bridges of the Charlotte Hornets. Bridges had the best season of his career, putting up career-high numbers across the board. In every statistic, he either set a new or tied a previous career-best.
Coming into the offseason, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that he would return to the Charlotte Hornets, but that may no longer be the case.
LATEST NBA FREE AGENCY NEWS AND TRADE RUMORS: This Hornets-Pacers Sign & Trade Features Miles Bridges
According to NBA Analysis Network’s own Evan Massey, the Indiana Pacers are a team to watch when it comes to Bridges. The two sides reportedly have a lot of mutual interest and the Pacers are viewed as the top threat to sign him away from Charlotte.
There have been some rumblings that the Hornets may be getting cold feet when it comes to signing Bridges to a max deal. That could very well be some posturing from the organization, hoping a team gives him an offer sheet for a little less money, that they would be much more comfortable matching.
While Indiana is categorized by many as a rebuilding team, they are always the ones to keep an eye on when it comes to restricted free agents. They don’t normally have grand plans for unrestricted free agents and will target players, who may be expensive to sign, but fit their timeline.
LATEST NBA FREE AGENCY NEWS AND TRADE RUMORS: This Hornets-Pacers Sign & Trade Features Miles Bridges
Miles Bridges is only 24 years old, making him younger than Chris Duarte, the Indiana Pacers’ first-round pick from the 2021 NBA Draft. If Duarte is viewed as a long-term building block piece in Indiana, Bridges will be as well.
