Miles Bridges will return to the field as a member of the Charlotte Hornets for another season after domestic violence charges kept him out of the 2022-23 campaign.
Bridges has signed a qualifying offer of $7.9 million that will keep him at Queen City for the 2023-24 season and allow him to be an unrestricted free agent in 2024, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Bridges tweeted After the news came, “I am blessed to be back with the team. Let’s make some noise!!”
The Hornets forward has not played since he was arrested in Los Angeles on June 29, 2022 — the day before free agency began last summer — on three counts of domestic violence for allegedly assaulting his then-girlfriend in front of their children. .
Bridges received a qualifying offer from the Hornets the day before his 2022 arrest and was expected to receive a maximum contract from Charlotte worth $173 million, according to The New York Times.
Bridges pleaded no contest to one count of domestic violence in November and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and ordered to attend counseling and parenting classes.
Bridges was also ordered to undergo weekly drug tests and the victim was sentenced to 10 years in prison against the NBA player.
The league suspended Bridges 30 games in April and returned him 20 games due to missing the entire season last year.
He will still have the 10 games he needs to sit out in order to complete the penalty imposed by the league for violating the NBA’s domestic violence policy.
In April, Commissioner Adam Silver explained why Bridges was penalized as it was.
“The process (with Bridges) was that we worked with his representatives and the player association that he missed the entire season,” Silver told CBS Sports. And so we felt, on the scale, that because he sat out a full season and wasn’t paid a full season, we thought in fairness he’d give him partial credit, I think, because he sat out that season. “
Silver added that the appropriate punishment since the season he missed forced Bridges to lose “millions of dollars.”
Bridges will now spend this season trying to boost his value across the NBA.
The forward was coming off a 2021-22 season in which he averaged 20.2 points and 7.0 rebounds while appearing in 80 games.
