Mikal Bridges is up against an invisible measuring stick

The problem is the draft picks. That’s what makes Mikal Bridges’ up-and-down season a little extra problematic. Picks are always the great unknown. Picks are an abstract. Picks can be as valuable as your imagination allows them to be before the picks are actually … well, picked, until you know for sure, tangibly, the flesh-and-blood yield.

So on nights when Bridges struggles — and that’s about 30 percent of his season so far, give or take — you can believe the five picks the Knicks gave the Nets for Bridges last summer will become five MVPs. On the nights he performs as you might expect he would, or even exceeds your expectations, you can easily channel what Josh Hart said about the picks earlier in the year.

“He was traded,” Hart said with a half-grin back in November, “for five 12th graders.”

Hart, for one, had it a lot easier. When the Knicks acquired him from the Blazers in a four-team trade two years ago, it cost the Knicks three players who have never played anywhere near Hart’s level (Cam Reddish, Ryan Arcidiacono, Ante Tomic) and one draft pick, Kris Murray, who in 113 career games has averaged 5.2 points per game.