Something Huge is Brewing ...

Alright, we got to take a minute and talk about everybody's favorite Sixers big man, Adem Bona and him developing some new skills this offseason that are going to play a key role in him taking the spot from Joel Embiid. I'm kidding a little bit, maybe not though because as we know Joel Embiid not going to be playing every single game so the Sixers need to have a good like co backup slash starting center and I am huge on Adem Bona. I have always been open about that all offseason that I'm a UCLA Bruin, he's a UCLA Bruin so I am biased but I want to talk about some new talents that he is exposing because here on Sixers Digest we do deep dives into players' Instagrams and stuff so when we see Adem, oh I'm also supposed to always tell you guys for the first minute of every show, like, subscribe, comment, share, it's a YouTube show, you know what you're doing. If you're here watching this, you're not new to this medium of stuff but like I said doing a deep dive, Adem Bona posting an IG video of him absolutely shooting the lights out of the gym and okay, sure, you can pump your brakes and say Christian, you are a over-reactionary hyperbolic moron and you would probably be right, I would ask you if that's my wife using a burner in the comment section but you get what I'm saying like okay, sure, nobody guarding him in a gym, you could edit those clips, all of that kind of stuff but it did get me thinking about the big man battle and that right now, like I said at the top, Embiid is the guy but he's, you know, this weird situation where not very many of any other teams in the NBA have a starting player who doesn't play nearly every single game but also commands like a disproportionate chunk of the salary to the point where you really can't pay the dude's backups to be like real-time like major, major backups. Bona got his contract guaranteed this offseason and is like obviously, this is good money for anybody at all, let alone good money for someone in their 20s so I guess I digress on making a good chunk but you get what I'm saying like Embiid's making literally 20 times that and so it's something where we got to squeeze the most out of the rest of the center position. Now, there has been some talk about like who's gonna fill up the backups and with some of the recent changes and additions like LeBron and talking about maybe some KCPs come in here and whatnot, it does, I'm seeing these headlines and while nothing is official, it does seem like Jani Broome is not going to get nearly the crack that he thought at joining this group during the season. I have thought that a fair amount of you in the comment section might be okay with that so I am not here to be like oh my gosh, yes or no, we're missing out on a good thing but when you then start looking at okay, who do we got, how can we figure out how to maximize it, these numbers on Bona who again I am making the case for because I both like him but I also have a lot of confidence in his ability to grow into a good offensive and just grow into a better NBA player. The numbers for his last two seasons or his only two seasons, well as he enters in his third NBA season, 58 games just north of 15 minutes in his first year, 71 games and 17 minutes in his second year including 10 playoff games and three starts, that in and of itself I would argue is close to being just the necessary acclimation and growth time. I think there are very few guys, if any, maybe LeBron is one of them, obviously some of them exist who can jump into the NBA and immediately just be like okay, I get it, I understand the speed, the mentality, the every piece of this, it just comes super naturally to me. Most people aren't that, even NF or even NBA caliber players aren't necessarily that when they are 22 the way that they are that when they're 26 or something like that. So watching Bona grow over the last couple of years, yes he has had some struggles but I would argue that it's been an uncertain position of how much is he playing, how many of those are going to be starts versus backup minutes etc etc. That's a hard role to grow into when you know that you're not, he's not going to unseed I'm not saying he's going to be a better big man than Embiid, that's an impossible goaded level of an argument but to watch him develop and grow in ways like being able to shoot a little bit more I think are fantastically big steps forward. Ultimately the number one thing is going to be we need Bona's defense to expand exponentially and if he can really focus on cleaning up the boards and being a rebounder in a much greater gear than he had been obviously that is going to maximally benefit the team but a Bona who can shoot is a better one and this is an interesting little tidbit that I saw out of that article that was talking about his development as shooting. Andre Drummond, first massive chunk of his career, 143s taken in just north of 900 games then in the 25-26 campaign under Nick Nurse, 93s, hitting them at a 35% clip. So obviously Nick Nurse is somebody who is willing to take a chance on letting a big man have more of the green light and I would be curious if that isn't going to translate into meaning that Bona is going to be cleared to shoot whether that's 5-10 a game or 3-5 a game or a specific shot count or just the understanding that if Bona, because like we have said Embiid is not going to be able to start every game, so if Bona is going out there with Maxie, LeBron, the whole group that's going to Jalen Brown, Maxie, LeBron, Edgecombe, those are all options of people that you would think have to be the priority to guard. So does them leaving Adeb Boda in the corner to shoot a couple of threes a game give him more of that room to grow and does he become a better three-point shooter by the end of the season? I'd be down. I'd be super duper down. Obviously like I keep saying I am a hugely biased person towards him but it seems like this could be a great positive development. This article closes out with the like I said the the emphasis for all of the shooting goodness does still need to be on his traditional role getting rid of the fouls being better at the boards but it just all makes me wonder collectively if the immediacy with which VJ Edgecombe shows up and starts balling out with which Tyrese Maxie starts balling out with Embiid being a generational big man if there isn't maybe some lack of perspective on Bona and that he is growing into a better player and instead of us needing to spend the rest of the offseason looking to finagle one more big man out of all of this if we don't need to just let's get 10 games into the season before we read about let's at least get through the preseason before we re-evaluate it and see what a refurbished lineup plus a an ever-growing Adeb Bona combined with Huck Porty because that that one's a real unknown given how little he played behind Mitchell Robinson and just what we don't we don't know what we don't know about how Nick Nurse is going to use these two behind Embiid anyway this season so I would say that yes I get you guys in the comment section saying that we need more of we need a better big man we need a better big man and I would ask that maybe we pump the brakes and say that so much has changed this offseason why don't we take a couple of games even if they're just preseason games to just see what we have and then react again after that's my case for Adeb Bona let me know what you guys think until next time we'll talk to you soon