With less than two weeks to go until training camp begins, the vibes around the Sixers are still largely immaculate for the time being. However, Thursday’s news that Adem Bona suffered a foot sprain was a reminder of what might prove to be their Achilles’ heel.
Liberty Ballers’ Paul Hudrick reported that Bona suffered the injury during the FIBA World Cup qualifiers and that he’s expected to return to on-court workouts within the first two weeks of training camp. For now, it doesn’t appear to be any
major cause for alarm. But if Bona does miss the start of the season for whatever reason, it’ll put the Sixers’ frontcourt depth to the test early on.
Joel Embiid has not exactly been the textbook definition of health throughout his decade-long NBA career. Although he said in the spring that he was feeling better about his oft-injured knee moving forward, he isn’t going to suddenly start playing 82 games. If nothing else, he figures to continue missing at least one game in back-to-back sets and buying strategic rest at other points throughout the regular season.
As a result, backup center tends to be more important for the Sixers than most other teams. And even with a healthy Bona, that looked like the weakest spot of their roster heading into the season.
Bona is the spiritual successor to Paul Reed: a low-minutes chaos agent who can’t stay out of foul trouble. His athleticism and motor have endeared him to Sixers fans, but his 4.7 fouls per 36 minutes over his first two seasons? Not so much. Bona did undeniably outplay Andre Drummond for significant portions of the 2025-26 season and figured to enter this year with the inside track for the backup center job.
Ariel Hukporti, whom the Sixers signed with a portion of their bi-annual exception this offseason, is Bona’s main competition for that role. He’s far more of an unknown, as he served as the New York Knicks’ third-string center for his first two NBA seasons. The 7’0″, 246-pound Hukporti has solid size for a center, but could he hold down the fort as the primary backup if Bona misses time? The jury remains very much out on that for now.
The Sixers might not have much of a choice in the matter, though. After signing LeBron James and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, they’re only about $1.8 million below their first-apron hard cap. They won’t have enough financial wiggle room to sign anyone other than an undrafted rookie free agent until early December at the earliest. (Sorry, Kevin Love.)
Instead, Bona’s injury could force head coach Nick Nurse to tap into his mad-scientist side early on.
Nurse already tinkered with small-ball lineups featuring Dominick Barlow at the 5 last year, so he figures to revisit those. Granted, lineups featuring Barlow without any of Embiid, Bona or Andre Drummond had a net rating of minus-3.3 last season, so those might not be a panacea, either.
Dean Wade is also listed at 6’9″, so he could be another small-ball 5 option. However, he didn’t fare much better in lineups without Jarrett Allen or Evan Mobley last season in Cleveland (minus-2.1 net rating). And while LeBron-at-the-5 lineups are a fun idea in theory, that isn’t the best use of him on either end of the floor. Those lineups would also leave the Sixers woefully short on rim protection.
The Sixers do still have one open two-way spot, so they could (should?) look to fill that with another big man as additional insurance. Granted, players can only sign two-way contracts if they have fewer than four years of NBA experience, so the Sixers couldn’t sign an established veteran such as Love or Kelly Olynyk to such a deal. Their options may be fairly limited in that regard, although none of us should ever doubt president of basketball operations Mike Gansey again after what he pulled off this offseason.
If the Sixers are fully healthy, they should be in the inner circle of title contenders this year. But Bona’s foot sprain was an unwelcome reminder of their lack of depth behind the oft-injured Embiid.
Could that be their undoing, at least early in the year before they’re able to fill their 15th roster spot with a prorated minimum contract? It might largely fall on Hukporti to prove otherwise.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.
Follow Bryan on Bluesky.
