Adem Bona says EuroBasket run with Turkey gives him ‘playing fuel’ for second NBA season with Sixers

Bona ranked seventh in the tournament in blocks (1.4 per game) and also averaged 5.6 points and 2.1 rebounds for Turkey, which made a surprising run to win the silver medal.

Adem Bona helped lead Turkey to a silver medal at the EuroBasket tournament.Read moreYagiz Gurtug / Associated Press

by Gina Mizell

Published Sept. 25, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

Kelly Oubre Jr. instantly noticed Adem Bona as he walked into a back room at SPIN in Center City on Saturday afternoon, then wrapped his teammate into a hug.

Those types of greetings surely have been common in recent days, with 76ers players and staff reconvening in Philly for informal workouts and pickup games ahead of the preseason. But Oubre’s enthusiastic reaction to Bona was understandable, given that the second-year big man had just gotten back to town after winning the EuroBasket silver medal with Turkey.

Bona now hopes he can apply that big-stage international experience with the Sixers, a team aiming for a significant turnaround following a disastrous 2024-25 season.

“Now I already have a sense of what it feels like playing for a game where everything matters,” Bona said at a fundraiser for the Battier Take Charge Foundation, a mentorship program Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey helped launch at Camden Academy Charter School. “Every play, every defensive stop matters.”

It was a special run for Turkey, which reached the tournament final for the first time in 24 years. Bona, who was born in Nigeria, became a Turkish citizen in 2018 after playing for Istanbul Basket as a teenager and then for the national team in the U16 and U18 FIBA European Championships. At EuroBasket, Bona was a teammate of former Sixer Furkan Korkmaz.

Bona ranked seventh in EuroBasket in blocks (1.4 per game) and averaged 5.6 points and 2.1 rebounds in those nine games. During its stunning run to the championship game, Turkey beat Nikola Jokić’s Serbia in group play, then Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Greece in the semifinals. Turkey was anchored by Houston Rockets standout Alperen Sengün, whom Bona said he has played with and against since they were teenagers.

“I feel we had the talent. We had a connection. We had a youthfulness,” Bona said of his Turkish team. “… Once the tournament started, I think the whole team, we were all set on the goal where we really wanted to make it far in the tournament. Every single win, it just felt like ‘All right, now for the next one.’ We just kept on pushing. We didn’t take it back like, ‘Oh my God, we just won again!’

“After the tournament, after we had the silver medal, we were like, ‘Oh my God, we made history.’”

EuroBasket was one part of a busy offseason for Bona, who also became a leader for the Sixers’ summer league team. That followed a strong finish to his rookie season, in which Bona stepped into a prominent role as the Sixers dealt with numerous injuries and shifted into “tank” mode to increase their lottery odds for a high draft pick.

Bona averaged 13.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.5 blocks, and 1.1 steals in his final 15 games last season and impressed with his athleticism and high motor. Morey said Saturday that he recognized parallels between how Bona finished his season with the Sixers and how his EuroBasket impact increased throughout the tournament.

“To also do it on the highest stage in the offseason,” Morey said of Bona, “I think just has him come [into this Sixers season] with a lot of confidence. Just like our season, he improved and played more minutes and did more with the Turkish team as it went along.

“It just shows his trajectory is on the up and up.”

Bona’s basketball life will not slow down anytime soon. The Sixers begin formal practices this weekend before traveling to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for preseason games against the New York Knicks on Oct. 2 and 4. Bona said he has been in touch with the medical team about how to best take care of his body during this stretch and acknowledged that he was “still trying to get a hold of my bearings a little bit” after returning to Philly.

But Bona, 22, also believes this summer gave him “more playing fuel” entering his second NBA season.

“I’m still young,” he said.