Mikal Bridges has now played in 500 consecutive NBA games - every single game since being drafted in 2018!
This is the longest streak of consecutive games played by any current NBA player.
He also never missed a game in college, playing in all 116 at Villanova!
He is the 6th player ever to play in all of their first 500 career games, and the last person to do it was back in the 1980s
How?
How has Mikal Bridges not missed a single game?
Well, the answers he gave on a podcast and an interview are pretty simple.
He gave 3 main reasons:
He has been fortunate enough to not have any major injuries
He takes time to do different things related to recovery (but he thinks probably the same amount as any other player)
His body is weird and just recovers and gets through injuries faster than the average person
So yeah he kind of just got lucky.
Streak Almost Ended
While not missing a game your whole career is very impressive, there were a few times when Bridges' streak almost ended:
In his rookie season, he got a grade 2 elbow sprain in his shooting arm, which is an injury that most players would miss games for. However, he says he could still play because he wasn't taking many shots in game anyway, and was basically just out there for defense. He says his adrenalin also helped him not really feel the injury much during the few shots that he did take.
Last season with the Nets, in a game where none of the starters were playing because they had already made the playoffs, Bridges decided to play for just 4 seconds to keep his streak alive.
He actually did miss a game last season but it didn’t count against his streak. The Nets played on the night that he was traded, but it was finalized too close to the start of the game and he was listed as “inactive/trade pending.” The NBA ruled that this did not count as a missed game because he wasn’t eligible to play yet.
Longest Streak Ever?
So does Mikal Bridges have the longest consecutive game streak ever?
no. not even close.
The longest streak is held by A.C. Green who played in 1,192 straight games from 1986-2001.
It's unlikely that any player will ever reach this streak, especially with how popular things like load management and resting players have become in the modern NBA.
That's all for now :)
He's very inspiring - and lucky and persistent too.
Thank you for another fun read!