But as the chatter gets louder with each day leading up to the NBA trade deadline on Feb. 8, the forward just shrugs at the outside noise. “It doesn’t really bother me,” Miles Bridges said Friday before the Hornets’ matchup with Houston at Spectrum Center. “I don’t play attention to what people are saying. I’ve been criticized for the last year and a half now, so trade talk is the least of my worries. So, I just go out there and try to play my best every game, bring it all out there on the floor and that’s all I worry about.” Bridges has the upper hand: He has the ability to veto a trade. It’s one of the contractual stipulations associated with the one-year, $7.9 million tender he signed in July, rather than inking a long-term deal. Still, rumors continue to churn, including the latest indicating the Phoenix Suns’ reported interest. But Bridges only has one preferred destination. And it’s not the desert. Nor in the Midwest near Lake Michigan. “Like I said before, the Hornets have been behind me and I want to stay here,” Bridges told the Observer. “I want to be here and that’s never going to change. So, as much talk as people hear that’s going around, just know that I want to stay with the Hornets.” -via Charlotte Observer / January 26, 2024
