Adem Bona’s rookie season is another marginal win for the front office
The youngster from UCLA might develop into a long-term backup center which is something the Sixers have been lacking for a while.
tough spot. They’ll soon find out if they’re retaining their top-six protected first-round pick in this summer’s draft. They seem to be optimistic about Joel Embiid’s knee and his prognosis for 2025-26, but if they end up landing the fifth or sixth pick in a few weeks, centers will be discussed as options with that selection.
Regardless of how the next five months go for the Sixers, the point remains that there are lots of important decision that need to be made. That’s usually the case when you enter a season with such high expectations like the Sixers did in 2024-25 and end up as one of the league’s worst teams. While the Sixers need to figure out how to shape the top of their roster this year, there were some small wins at the bottom of the roster this season.
Towards the end of the season especially, Adem Bona began to make the most of his playing time. His offensive game is still a ways away from being polished but at the very least he looks like a solid defensive anchor who will rebound well and block a lot of shots. For a player drafted in the middle of the second round, it’s a good foundation to build off of and even if Bona never improves offensively, his defensive floor seems high enough to keep him in the NBA.
Bona was the 41st overall pick in last summer’s NBA Draft out of UCLA. He played about 15 minutes per game this season and appears to be finding his niche as a nice defensive anchor off the bench. In those 15 minutes per game, he’s averaged over one block and over four rebounds per game. It’s not the biggest sample size of course, but realistically you were just hoping for Bona to showcase enough skills that were worth developing for the rest of his rookie contract and he has done that.
Here’s an impressive stat we saw towards the end of the regular season regarding Bona’s rim protection in the second half of the season:
