The Sixers have a chance to do something Tuesday that they have not done all season: win a second consecutive game. They will face a Charlotte Hornets team decimated by injuries, looking to build on their road victory over the Detroit Pistons on Saturday night.
As we do every Tuesday, let's get to a Sixers mailbag. For the third consecutive week, questions here came from my new followers over at Bluesky. Let's get to it:
From @hallubin.bsky.social: What do you think the odds are that Adem Bona can play well enough during Andre Drummond’s absence to secure a rotation spot? I know he’s raw, but it seems like he has the tools to contribute sooner rather than later.
Drummond will miss all three games this week, with the Sixers saying on Monday afternoon that the veteran center would be reevaluated over the weekend. With Joel Embiid out for at least one more game as well, Bona will have another chance to impress in Charlotte after making a strong impromptu appearance in Detroit when Drummond sprained his ankle.
Bona swatted three shots in 20 minutes, and despite predictably committing four fouls, the rookie out of UCLA generally seemed comfortable navigating the NBA setting in his second chance at extended run in a regular season game with the Sixers. For someone who, as you said, is considered very raw and more of a long-term developmental project, early returns on Bona's current capabilities have been positive.
Still, Bona is fourth on the team's depth chart at the center position. The Sixers believe they will be at their best with Embiid starting, Drummond backing him up and Guerschon Yabusele logging minutes at power forward. With Embiid and Drummond sidelined, though, Yabusele will man the middle and log the majority of the team's minutes at the five. Bona will likely take the remaining minutes, though KJ Martin could work his way into the picture if Sixers head coach Nick Nurse opts to use small-ball lineups.
So, securing a permanent rotation spot will likely not be an attainable goal for Bona unless Embiid or Drummond ends up missing multiple months — at which point Bona exceeding expectations could open the door. It certainly sounds like the week ahead is a big one for Bona, though, as he looks to show continued progress from the summer.
MORE: Previewing week ahead for Sixers
From @zteutsch.bsky.social: When he was in Toronoto, Nurse succesfully developed several strong-defending, versatile players (OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, etc.). Do you see something like that happening in Philly? Could Ricky Council IV have that kind of defensive upside?
Nurse's affinity for players with impressive frames, athletic tools and defensive chops has been well-documented, predating his time with the Sixers. It is why some had high hopes for Jaden Springer last season, and part of the reason Nurse opted to give Council chances to earn minutes last season when Council was a rookie on a two-way contract.
The bar is set high with players like Anunoby, one of the best role players in the NBA who can excel in any situation, and Siakam, whose remarkable developmental arc has led to him becoming one of the better shot-making bigs in the NBA. But if one is to still assume Nurse will be coaching the Sixers for the foreseeable future despite this season's catastrophic first handful of weeks, it will be intriguing to monitor the extent to which young players improve under his coaching staff -- particularly ones like Council, who possess the physical abilities Nurse has been known to crave in wings.
It is not just on Nurse and his staff, of course: the team must acquire players who are not only gifted athletically, but skilled enough to succeed at the NBA level. Only so much skill development can be done for a raw athlete.
Council and (to a lesser degree) Bona will both be interesting test cases for Nurse and his staff. But if one of the younger players on this roster with outlier athletic tools turns into a high-caliber NBA player for many years, neither one would be my top bet. That would be Martin, whose blend of 99th-percentile athleticism and smarts make for an exciting recipe. Let's talk about it with the next question:
MORE: How Sixers can forge an identity without Embiid
From @shamus.bsky.social: What’s a mid-tier trade the Sixers should make?
The vast majority of players who signed new contracts over the summer will be eligible to be traded on Dec. 15, and so I will get to specific players for the Sixers could target in a few weeks.
But to get, a team always must give, and Martin has been considered the most likely Sixer to be traded this season ever since he inked a two-year, $16 million contract which only contains guaranteed money for this season. The deal was designed to make him a helpful asset in the facilitation of a trade for a player making between $8 and $15 million or so, depending on which other players the Sixers would be willing to part with. Martin is making nearly the exact same amount as Kelly Oubre Jr., who was a no-doubt starter for Nurse heading into the year after a strong first campaign with the team.
There is plenty of time before the Sixers have to make this decision — Martin is not eligible to be moved until Jan. 15, leaving another six weeks or so before trading the fifth-year forward is even an option — but is there a world in which that time comes, and the Sixers view Martin as a more helpful player than Oubre — who is just now beginning to find a decent groove after a rough start to the season?
Where Oubre showed the most value last year was scaling his offensive role up or down at a moment's notice to accommodate the personnel surrounding him. So far this season, though, he has simply not been efficient in any role. Oubre's field goal percentage in 2024-25 is lower than it has been in any year of his career since his third NBA campaign. His three-point percentage and true shooting percentage are both career-lows, with his 25.3 percent clip from beyond the arc being especially alarming.
Oubre is still a useful defender against multiple positions, but if he remains incapable of scoring efficiently in any role, it could open the door for Martin to surpass him in the pecking order. If Martin continues to tap into his absurd athletic gifts in games as he has of late — allowing him to be a stout multi-positional defender in his own right on top of being an offensive weapon in transition — he could make a strong case as a more valuable player and asset than Oubre.
Players with the sort of combination of athletic prowess and on-court awareness which Martin possesses rarely turn out to be bad NBA players. Given how many investments the Sixers have made in post-prime players, it would not hurt to keep a player like Martin with clear upward mobility — especially if he continues to showcase an ability to help the team win in the current day:
How has Martin changed in the year-plus since he arrived in Philadelphia? He told PhillyVoice last month that he used his lack of consistent playing time last season as a tool to learn:
"Obviously, I grew up a bunch," Martin said. "I thought I was already pretty mature for my age, but getting traded from Houston to LA, then being traded right at the beginning of the season here — I think for anybody, it would be a lot to handle. Just being here last year, I didn't play that much, and that was my first time not really playing. Just me seeing the game from a different aspect helped me in a way. Obviously, I wanted to play, I wanted to compete. I felt like I could. Seeing the game from that angle helped me as a basketball player a lot, just understanding the game."
MORE: KJ Martin one-on-one
Follow Adam on Twitter: @SixersAdam
Follow PhillyVoice on Twitter: @thephillyvoice