The Sixers’ backup center spot is one of the first real battles worth watching as camp approaches, and it comes with a familiar layer of urgency. Joel Embiid’s injury history keeps that position under the microscope, and heading into the 2026-27 season, Adem Bona and Ariel Hukporti are the two names most likely to matter.
Bona is the more familiar face to Sixers fans. The 41st pick in the 2024 NBA draft, he stood out in Philadelphia’s injury-ravaged 24-win season in 2024-25 and then split the backup center role with Andre Drummond last year. He appeared in 71 regular-season games, putting up 4.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 17.4 minutes a night.
The rim protection is real. At the 2024 draft combine, Bona tied for first with a 35-inch standing vertical leap, and that explosion has shown up in the form of NBA shot blocking.
Last season, his 3.3 block percentage ranked in the 88th percentile among big men, according to Cleaning the Glass. The fouls, though, remain part of the package, and they showed up often in the playoffs.
Even so, Bona proved his shot blocking was not just a product of being on a severely depleted team.
He’s trying to round out the rest of his game in Year 3 without losing what makes him effective.
“I think just staying consistent, trying to get better at everything,” he told reporters at his exit interview in May. “The most important thing for me is rebounding, (being) able to impact the team defensively, and offensively, being versatile and bringing so many things to the team besides just doing one thing. I think that’s my goal and that’s what I’m trying to improve.”
Hukporti arrives as the main internal challenger. After winning a championship with the Knicks, he signed a one-year, $3.4 million deal with Philadelphia this summer. The 24-year-old left-hander said he saw a “great connection with the team.”
“I feel like it’s still a young team,” Hukporti said in a July virtual press conference. “They have young players and they have vets there as well, and I feel like they have a great balance between the two.
I feel like it’s pretty similar to where I was before. … I was just looking at the young guys personally and seeing how connected they are.
That made me want to be here.”
The two centers have a lot in common on paper. Both have two years of NBA experience.
Both bring strong shot-blocking numbers - Hukporti posted a 3.1 block percentage last season. Both have struggled with fouls.
And neither has offered much on the offensive end yet, including very little three-point shooting.
Hukporti’s role in New York was smaller because he was buried behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson. He played in 54 regular-season games and averaged 2.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in 9.2 minutes per game.
Still, he has given a little more indication than Bona that he may eventually stretch the floor. Hukporti attempted threes for the Westchester Knicks in the G League last season and went 8 for 25, which is 32 percent. He also took threes with Nevėžis Kėdainiai in Lithuania during the 2020-21 season and shot 13 for 47, or 27.7 percent.
“We’re going to see, we’re going to see,” Hukporti said in July when asked about his jump shooting. “It’s going to be a little surprise. I’m definitely working on it.”
At this point, it’s not easy to call who Nick Nurse will lean toward as the backup center. Bona may have the early edge simply because Nurse already knows him and, even if he didn’t clearly win the job over Drummond, still appeared to earn a playoff role last season.
There are also a few postseason-related names to keep in mind beyond the two main candidates. James, Dominick Barlow and Dean Wade all logged minutes at center in the playoffs.
Barlow played 10 percent of his minutes there last season, according to Cleaning the Glass, and had a mostly positive stretch at center in the Sixers’ narrow Round 2, Game 2 loss to the Knicks without Embiid. Wade spent nine percent of his playing time at center, while James logged four percent.
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