Philadelphia reserve center Ariel Hukporti suffers non-contact leg injury, undergoing imaging

This looks terrible.

Philadelphia reserve center Ariel Hukporti is undergoing imaging on his right leg after going down five minutes into the team’s first preseason game with a non-contact injury. The imaging is focused on his Achilles, and while nothing is official yet, 76ers beat writers reported after the game that the team feared the worst.

Hukporti played his first two seasons in New York — he is going to get a ring — before coming to Philadelphia this summer as one of the reserves for Joel Embiid at center, signing a one-year, $3.4 million deal in Philly. Hukporti was going to see a lot of run this preseason with the team limiting Joel Embiid’s play and the other reserve center, Adem Bona, dealing with a foot sprain.

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Look for the 76ers to explore ways to land another backup center (while they have Tacko Fall in camp on an Exhibit 10 deal, he is not the answer). The problem is Philadelphia is hard-capped at the first apron and is just $1.4 million below that number, so it can’t even sign a veteran minimum player until early December. It could force the front office to make a cost-cutting move it didn’t really want to (cutting the non-guaranteed deal of Jabari Parker, for example, but the 76ers have liked how he played in camp). The more likely outcome is the 76ers try to tough it out until December with the guys they have.

Don’t be surprised if, during the preseason, coach Nick Nurse experiments with a lot of small lineups, just to see how that may work.

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/philadelphia-center-ariel-hukporti-suffers-162712218.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-06 16:27:00

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