Adem Bona’s foot injury exposes the Sixers’ potential fatal flaw this season

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.

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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.

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Publish date : 2026-09-18 14:00:00

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