Adem Bona Knows Exactly Who He Is

This man was born to be a beloved role player.

Most people don’t like being told what they’re supposed to do. A high school boy hates being told he has to finish his homework before he can go back to playing Fortnite, the same way guys who starred at lower levels don’t want to be told they can only be 3-and-D role players in the NBA. 

And then there’s Adem Bona, the Sixers’ second-round draft pick out of UCLA – who knows exactly why the team took him, and on the surface at least actually seems pretty fine with doing only that.

“Staying true to myself, doing the things I do best,” Bona told reporters when asked about how he plans to balance his strengths and weaknesses as a rookie. “Whatever the team needs me to do, I will do it. Doing what I do best defensively, running the floor. I think that’s what’s going to get me on the floor. I wouldn’t deviate from that, or try something new or different. I just got to do what I do best.” 

Bona wasn’t the flashiest choice the Sixers could’ve made with the 41st overall pick. Wings and guards with higher ceilings were still on the board, and Bona being a defensively slanted player without a jump shot doesn’t scream “sneaky star upside.” However, he is still a player who can help the Sixers, as you should see tonight when the Summer League Sixers take on the Thunder at 7 p.m. ET in Salt Lake City. 

Defense

Bona talked little about his offense during his introductory press conference — not a surprise given he was named the 2023-24 Pac 12 Defensive Player of the Year. 

Standing around 6-foot-9 in shoes, Bona is definitely on the smaller side for an NBA center. However, with a near 7-foot-4 wingspan and elite mobility, he more than makes up for his lack of height on the court. UCLA played him in all sorts of aggressive pick and roll coverages, from hard hedging ball handlers at halfcourt, to switching 1 through 5 onto even the smallest of guards. 

He can turn and sprint with the best of them, has a phenomenal second-jump (i.e. he doesn’t need much of a load-up to jump and contest shots, he can land and then get right back up in the air immediately), and his defensive motor is reminiscent of the 2008 Celtics’ Kevin Garnett, who allegedly downed Red Bull before games. 

“The one thing about me, you’re always going to get all-out effort from me,” Bona said at his press conference. “Every time I step on the floor, I come with all [the] energy I can give. I give everything for my team to get wherever we want to get to. I think Philly is getting one of the hardest workers in the draft.” 

Additionally, Bona is far more than a point-and-shoot ball of chaos – he’s also a very smart and cerebral defender. At UCLA, he was constantly communicating instructions and pointing out offensive actions, and he was always ready to switch and rotate off-ball to cover for his teammates if they got beat. He’ll often peel off toward an offensive player driving downhill, slow their momentum by allowing them to ram into his ridiculously strong chest, then simply keep both hands up in perfect verticality, trusting that his positioning and length has thwarted the opportunity. 

Standard deep drop is really the only pick and roll coverage Bona might have trouble with at the NBA level, simply due to his lacking height and strength. Even then, Bona knows how to handle the situation and should be more than passable in drop from time to time. 

There are only two defensive issues that could ever keep Bona off the floor — defensive rebounding, and (more likely) foul trouble. 

He averaged fewer than four defensive rebounds per game this past year, and his 18.2% Defensive Rebounding rate was nothing to write home about. Defensive rebounding in the NBA is much more dependent on pure size and girth, with the bulkiest of centers swallowing up boards by boxing out and taking up all the available space in the paint while holding off the crashing offensive rebounders. Paul Reed was never a marvelous defensive rebounder, and it’s likely the same will be true for Bona (however, Bona is a spectacular offensive rebounder, as we’ll touch on later). 

More importantly, though, is Bona’s penchant for committing unnecessary fouls that cost him playing time. He’s so aggressive, so eager to make high-outcome plays, that he often gambles for the ball in a situation where he doesn’t need to, and racks up ticky tack fouls that his team doesn’t need. 

Though college basketball has far fewer all-in-one metrics available to the public than the NBA, BartTorvik still tracks individual Box Plus-Minus (BPM). This past season, Bona finished with a robust 5.8 BPM — pretty solid for a good player on an otherwise below average team.

However, Bona was just one of 12 players in all of college basketball last season to finish with a BPM over 5.0, but also commit over 5 fouls per 40 minutes. It speaks to how good he is that he still was a clear net positive despite sending opponents to the free throw line so often, but Bona’s foul trouble is 100% something he’ll have to rein in while playing for the Sixers. 

Offense

As he addressed in his own press conference, Bona doesn’t try to color outside the lines on offense. 

He runs the floor. He dunks. He buries overmatched players on post-ups. He seals for layups. He sets good screens. He doesn’t try to take random jumpers or call his own number on random occasions. 

Bona does the things he’s good at, and he avoids the things he’s bad at. 

Surprisingly for a defense-first center, Bona was a decently efficient post-up threat at UCLA. On 189 post-ups, he averaged 0.989 points per possession, good for the 76th percentile among college basketball players, per Synergy. He’s got a wicked drop step to get back to his right hand over his left shoulder, either flipping past his defender for a layup, or getting the angle for a jump hook, where he’s shown good touch. 

Spamming moves to get back to his right hand is the name of the game for Bona on offense, as his next second favorite move after the drop step is a hard drive to the right. He doesn’t have a ton of flashy fakes, feints or complex dribble moves, but he’s got a great first step and can beat the man in front of him in a straight race to the rim more often than not. 

Being strong and quick at 6-foot-9 can get you pretty far in basketball, as it turns out. Bona is a perfectly adequate at-rim finisher (69.4% on 170 attempts per Synergy), and he finished with 39 dunks in 33 games played. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s serviceable. 

Of course, the reason Bona works so hard to get back to his right hand when nearing the restricted area is that he has little to no left hand to speak of. The few lefty layups he attempted last season often sailed off the far end of the rim, and more commonly he would turn down open looks with his left to veer back into defenders with his right. 

As the season progressed, more and more opponents sat on Bona’s shoulder to prevent him from turning toward his right hand, yet the 21 year-old from Nigeria rarely if ever countered with a move to the open space. He sticks to the things he’s good at it, and one thing he’s not good at is using his left hand. 

Not being able to finish reliably with the weak-hand seems like an overly harsh nitpick of a projected backup center, and it is. Bona’s lack of ambidexterity likely won’t be a fatal flaw in the potential eight minutes he plays in a 2028 playoff game down the line. But it is something worth noting. Should he ever see the court in meaningful play during this upcoming season, expect a few plays where Bona smokes an easy lefty layup, or forces the ball back to his right despite having multiple defenders waiting for him. 

Yet, for as limited as he can be offensively as a scorer, Bona is quite opportunistic and additive to team success with his offensive rebounding. He averaged more than two offensive rebounds per game during both his seasons at UCLA, and he’s perfected a swim move technique that allows him to easily maneuver around opposing centers for second chances. 

Where good defensive rebounders are large and eat up space, good offensive rebounders are usually aggressive, quick leapers who can beat opponents to the ball at inopportune angles. Bona might surrender the occasional defensive board or too, but he’ll make up for it by fighting for extra shots on the other end. 

He brings other things to the table, namely his physical screens, a pinch of vertical spacing, and the occasional nice pass out of a double team down low. None of it will make you jump out of your seat – and especially on the passes, he needs to work on how he reads short roll situations. But there’s plenty to work with, particularly with a player who the Sixers will ideally need only 10-12 minutes out of each night down the line. 

Conclusion

I’ve found this as a good way to project Adem Bona in his NBA career:

He possesses a near identical physical profile to Paul Reed, but plays basketball on the complete opposite end of the ideological spectrum. Where every Bball Paul possession was a random result generator, most Bona possessions have three fixed outcomes to choose from. It’s much easier for coaches to deal with the latter, as Bona is much less likely to wave off his point guard and call his own number, or create a situation so bizarre that the NBA has to add a section to the “Plays that can happen in basketball” chart. 

Of course, this also means Bona probably will never reach the same highs that Reed occasionally grasped, especially on offense. He probably won’t have a 30-point performance in Denver with multiple threes (Bona finished 0-for-1 on threes over 66 career games at UCLA), nor will he hit a Dirk-leg fadeaway over Al Horford in Boston. But night in and night out, he should bring versatile and effective defense, while fighting to make plays on offense that gain the Sixers an extra edge. 

Backup center is a ridiculously important role on any Joel Embiid-led team. It requires starting 15-20 regular season games and not getting obliterated off the face of the earth in tough playoff matchups. Daryl Morey and Co. can’t waste time with the Maxey-PG-Embiid trio in place, and it’s why they spent $10 million to have Andre Drummond — a guy who already proved he can do the job. 

But Drummond can’t last forever, and it’s why the Sixers double-dipped and invested in a backup center of the future. In two years, Bona should be ready to go as the young, cost-controlled backup big man of the future in Philadelphia. Some guys might not want a job like that, but I have a hunch that Bona will be more than happy to accept it. 

Because he knows exactly who he is, and what the Sixers need him to be. 

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Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

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