The Charlotte Hornets say there aren’t any contract talks with Miles Bridges but what about other NBA teams?

Once again, the Charlotte Hornets and their under-fire star are back in the headlines, but to hear the team tell it, they’ve had no contractual talks with the player although recent reports suggest otherwise.

Charlotte Hornets deny reports of Miles Bridges contract talks

According to a statement from the franchise, The Charlotte Hornets have denied recent reports which suggested that they’ve held contract negotiations with restricted free agent Miles Bridges. Just last month, ESPN reported that the Hornets and Bridges were in the process of hashing out a new contract and moreover, both parties were optimistic that a deal could be pushed over the line in the near future. As mentioned above, the Hornets have flatly denied that notion saying “We have not been engaged in contract negotiations with Miles Bridges.”

In case you missed it, Bridges, who has not for the season, was arrested back on June 29th and later charged with one felony count of injuring a child’s parent and two felony counts of child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death. This past November, he pleaded no contest to one felony count of injuring a child’s parent and in turn received three years of probation, which is to say he avoided incarceration. In addition, Bridges will be required to do 52 weeks’ worth of classes in parenting and domestic violence counseling, as well as 100 hours of community service.

What does Miles Bridges future hold?

As we mentioned before, Bridges is a restricted agent. What that means, is that he went unsigned during the offseason following his arrest and subsequent legal process. The Hornets remained tight-lipped when asked if there was a possibility that Bridges could return to the team, which seems to be in keeping with their present denial, however, other reports have suggested that there are other teams in the league that are “monitoring the situation,” including the Los Angeles Lakers and Detroit Pistons. Of course, the fact that the Hornets never pulled the plug on the offer they gave Bridges over the summer, which is to say they do have the opportunity to match any offer he receives from another team.

At this point, it’s highly likely that if Bridges were to be signed by a team, he would receive an immediate suspension from the league. How long that suspension would be remains to be seen, but we do have a reference in Jeffery Taylor who received the league’s longest suspension for domestic violence with 24 games on the sideline. Incidentally, Taylor was also a Hornets player back in the 2014-15 season. If nothing else, what we can say is this, Bridges was Charlotte’s leading scorer at the time of his arrest with a career-high average of 20.2 points per game to go with seven rebounds and almost four assists. This is to say, that while he’s very much persona non grata at the moment, don’t be surprised if we see a team - including the Hornets - willing to take the PR hit to have him on the roster. That would of course be good for Bridges, but not so much for the team in question or the league itself.