CAMDEN, N.J. — As the Philadelphia 76ers move forward with their 2025-26 season, they will need second-year big man Adem Bona to step in and produce amid the right oblique strain bothering Joel Embiid. With 19 games remaining, the Sixers are in a heated race with the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat to stay out of the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n
With Embiid’s status up in the air at the moment–he will be re-evaluated on Friday–the Sixers will be relying on Bona to step in and give Philadelphia some production on both ends of the floor. He’s averaging 4.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks in his second season in the league, but coach Nick Nurse would like to see Bona sustain his play in terms of what the next steps are.<\/p>\n
“I don\u2019t really have any next steps other than how long can he sustain it?” Nurse said at practice on Friday. “How long can he do what he\u2019s doing, which has just been being disruptive on defense, blocking shots, providing tremendous energy, providing a chance for us as a staff to do a myriad of coverages where we can throw different things at people because of his disruptiveness and speed? Do we probably need him to up his defensive rebounding? Yes, but he\u2019s on the list with everybody else on the roster on that.”<\/p>\n
A big area in which Bona can improve is his fouling. He’s averaging 2.3 fouls per game which is even a little higher than 2.2 he averaged as a rookie. Nurse and the Sixers would like to see him get better in that area.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s gotten better, but he was in a place where he fouled a lot,” Nurse added. “And that even included screening, off-ball stuff, on the perimeter, at the rim. He\u2019s gotten better. We\u2019re trying to (avoid) what I would consider not wise ones. We want him to use his fouls protecting the rim. We\u2019re never going to get too caught up with somebody who\u2019s got an open layup and he tries to block it, takes a foul and sends them to the line so they didn\u2019t get a free and easy, clear one at the rim. Any over-the-back offensive rebounding fouls, 90 feet away from where they\u2019re going. Trying to eliminate the screening (fouls) a little bit as well.”<\/p>\n
Screening fouls can always be an issue for a guy who plays with a ton of energy and is always looking to make a positive impact. There are times when he can be overzealous and try to make a play, but the screening fouls can also end a promising offensive possession. Therefore, that’s another area in which Nurse would like to see some improvement.<\/p>\n
“He still gets them every now and then,” Nurse added. “Not always his fault–that\u2019s kind of a two-man situation. Guards have to wait a little longer. Sometimes they put him in a tough spot. And then the other ones on the perimeter, he doesn\u2019t do it too badly. He\u2019s pretty good with his feet out there and he also knows he can kind of chase from behind, so he\u2019ll use his shot blocking there.”<\/p>\n
Speaking of his shot blocking, Nurse would like to see Bona keep some of that in play.<\/p>\n
“One thing I wish he\u2019d do is block some more in play,” Nurse finished. “Sometimes he swats them into the 19th row. It\u2019s hard to go the other way when it\u2019s in the bleachers. That\u2019s asking a lot, I know, but that may be something we work on for next year.”<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Coach Nick Nurse gives his next steps for Sixers big man Adem Bona<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CAMDEN, N.J. — As the Philadelphia 76ers move forward with their 2025-26 season, they will need second-year big man Adem Bona to step in and produce amid the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkmania.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}