With Joel Embiid out and Andre Drummond a late scratch, Adem Bona was unexpectedly thrown into the mix. But the rookie big man was ready.
While Jared McCain’s 34-point performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers is deservedly eating up all the headlines in this city, he wasn’t the only Sixers rookie to make a positive impact Wednesday night.
With Joel Embiid managing his knee in the second night of a back-to-back and Andre Drummond coming down with an illness hours before the game, Nick Nurse was all but forced to give 2024 second-round pick Adem Bona a crack at some center minutes.
The 21-year-old has seen some NBA action so far this season, but mostly in sporadic garbage time minutes. For all intents and purposes, he played his first real minutes in the NBA Wednesday, and he held up just alright for his first time out there going up against bigs like Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley.
He played a little over 17 minutes, in that time pulling down nine rebounds which tied for the team high. He scored four points on put-back layups, blocked a shot, and was a -4 in the eight-point loss.
“I thought he was lively,” Nick Nurse said postgame. “He didn’t really make many mistakes, right? That’s always a big starting point — don’t do things that are going to hurt us.”
This performance came on very short notice too. Drummond was ruled out just before Nurse’s pregame availability, less than two hours before tip off. Bona revealed after the game he found that news out around a similar time.
While he is brand new to the league, Bona has already acclimated to the mindset of being prepared to go out there at any given moment.
“Every day, I stay ready, because you never know when you’re going to get called and you have to be ready,” he said. “If the coach calls on me and I don’t know what I’m doing, that’s a bad look. So I stay ready every time.”
The timing worked out well for this game, as the start of the G League season gave Bona a chance to get game reps. Bona had 14 points, nine rebounds and three blocks in 29 minutes in his first game for the Delaware Blue Coats on Monday, where he’s likely to spend most of this season.
He credited that chance to just get up and down the floor for helping him be ready for his opportunity on Wednesday.
One of the biggest themes for Bona when he’s had the chance to talk to reporters so far is his willingness to learn. He understands the path ahead of him as a rim-running big, and is trying to absorb as much as he can from the veterans in front of him so he can become that player at the NBA level.
Bona feels like what’s helped him progress the most since training camp has just been practicing with Embiid and Drummond.
“Those guys do what they do good,” he said Wednesday night. “Just the opportunity to practice with them and see them do it every day.”
While Bona is trying to learn from the veterans’ experience, he’s also seemed to develop a close relationship with his fellow rookie as they’ve come up together.
“It’s cool to just go out there and play as hard as I can with somebody who you admire, who you take as a friend, family,” McCain said of him after the game.
McCain added that the two go to chapel together before every game. Their faith is another thing they’ve bonded over.
Not only has Bona been impressed with how McCain has started his career, but he feels like it’s helped with his mindset as well.
“Picking up from where most of the guys left [off], I think that’s really amazing,” Bona said. “That gave me confidence.”