Adem Bona Scouting Report

Certain intangibles are needed in a player's profile to earn a long-term NBA career as an energy big. Is Bona ready for the league? What will his role look like? Find out more below.

At 16 years old, Bona made his professional debut in the first tier of the Turkish Basketball League. While representing Turkey internationally, Bona put himself on the radar of NBA scouts. His physical tools allowed him to play against older players early on in his life, leading to him playing himself up to the first team while being a high school sophomore.

Between the ages of 16 and 18, Bona failed to improve consistently, leading to him relying on his physical advantages over opponents to impact the game. To help his development, Bona decided to play high school basketball in the United States by challenging himself to compete against higher-level athletes. After a successful stint at Prolific Prep, Bona committed to UCLA as a five-star recruit, extending his stay in California.

Despite a year of ups and downs, Bona was crowned as Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, mainly due to his defensive presence. After receiving his feedback at the 2023 NBA Draft Combine, Bona continued to impress during his sophomore year, Bona’s production improved while maintaining his reputation as one of the West Coast’s best defenders. This resulted in him winning Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year.

Physical Profile

While measured at 6’8” at the Combine, Bona compensates for the lack of size with his explosiveness and mobility. At 243 pounds Bona is built like a rock and has no issues in handling physicality against taller or stronger players. His verticality is another value-riser in his profile, making up for playing a few inches shorter than the average college big man.

Due to his physical tools and strength, Bona never had to work hard to maintain his advantages at the youth level. Due to his injuries last summer, it wasn’t a good decision for him to keep his name in the NBA Draft.

As a sophomore, Bona worked hard on his fundamentals, which led to him utilizing his body much better compared to his freshman year. With his fluid hips and incredible footwork, Bona continues to show flashes of guarding multiple positions at the college level.

Offense

In a switch-heavy NBA game, it’s crucial to have a mobile big man who can roam the court and play outside of the paint. In Bona’s case, his explosiveness and quickness allow him to play on the perimeter in four or five-out sets. Despite being a non-threat shooter, Bona can space the floor by utilizing mismatches with his drives to the rim, forcing help-side defenders to rotate to mitigate the threat of his strength advantage.

In the first two plays below, Bona shows his blow-by speed combined with his strength to secure a high-quality look at the rim. At 76.0%, Bona is one of the most efficient rim-finishers in the country. In the last play, he has to pick up his dribble due to the defender’s good coverage of him. One of the main reasons why he stays efficient is his incredible footwork. Combined with the quickness he moves his feet, he uses his strength very well in getting to an advantage. That’s promising for his NBA profile.

Bona’s ability to play on the perimeter helps him as a passer as well. As a sophomore, Bona averages 1.2 assists to 2.5 turnovers per game. However, the context behind the numbers is that Bona wasn’t asked to create for others much. A positive is that he doesn’t shy away from making high-risk passes. Executing basic reads is what he does with ease, and that’s a starting point to develop into a good passer at the next level.

The second and third plays below show how he can be used as a playmaking hub by leveraging his strength in post-up situations after entry passes or out-of-bounds plays. Flashes of live dribble passing are also present in his profile. In the first play below he attacks the rim via the high post and finds the backdoor cutter with a good bounce pass. That’s an area where he can separate himself from most of his peers at the next level, as the lack of size makes it important to add other options to his game to keep him on the floor.

An area of risk in his profile is the high amount of personal fouls he keeps getting. At 3.6 personal fouls in 26 minutes per game, Bona can’t stay on the floor for long periods. He fouled out in 9 of his total 33 games played and has had four or more fouls in 19 games this season. One of the reasons is Bona has to improve his screening.

He’s caught with moving screens quite often. As his footwork in the post is a profile separator for him, his screening is what’ll have an NBA decision-maker doubtful about what to do with him in terms of his NBA role. The biggest reason behind it is him moving too late on offense. In the first play below, he moves his hips a tad too slow and instead of moving toward the location where the ball handler is relocating, he dives into the driving lane, catching the moving screen in the process.

In the second play, Bona has to place the ball screen higher than he does, leading to him having to bump into the defender who tries to slide between him and Bona’s ball handler. We see the same in the third play where Bona doesn’t move to where the ball handler needs the screen but makes it the other way around where the ball handler has to relocate to fully utilize Bona’s screen. It’s a fixable issue in the long run, but a factor that’ll keep him off the floor in the early stages of his NBA career.

At 5.9 rebounds per game, the numbers don’t support Bona’s activity on the glass. He’s a good rebounder who’ll be asked to impact the glass at the next level. His positioning is what makes him so good on this end. He has a good feel for where potential misses will land and keeps good track of the offense. With UCLA taking very few three-point attempts, the opportunity he gets to chase offensive boards is limited, causing a part of the low rebounding numbers.

In his game, it’s clear that Bona played European basketball before. That’s characterized by him always being present in the dunker’s spot after a field goal attempt from his team. In that way, he’s a threat to opponents in causing second-chance opportunities for his team.

However, an area that has to improve in the future is his not lowering the ball to below his waist anymore. That’s costing him production as it makes it easier for teams to foul him without giving up an and-one. In the first and third play below we see Bona having to lower the ball instead of keeping the ball high and using his verticality in his putbacks.

Defense

Bona’s mobility and quickness will lead to him to serve as a pick-and-roll defender at the next level. In a drop-coverage-heavy NBA game, Bona can separate himself from his peers with his versatility in pick-and-roll coverages. We see him being most comfortable by hedging or going over the screen. His strength allows him to pick up on ball handlers on the perimeter and deny them access to the interior.

However, his decision-making in executing his coverages is questionable at times. In the first play below, Bona has to pick up the ball handler, but after his teammate doesn’t rotate, Bona takes the matter into his own hands but ends up guarding no one in the interior. He ends up confused about the play that led to him not grabbing the rebound after the three-point miss.

In the second play, Bona shows he can potentially slide between the ball handler and screener, which makes him an option to guard in inverted pick-and-rolls at the NBA level. That’s the value-booster of his profile compared to his peers. In the third play, Bona shows good instincts by going over the drag screen immediately, poking the ball to show his defensive playmaking.

In today’s NBA we often see teams switch to lure the opposing big man to the midrange or perimeter to gain an advantage. In Bona’s case, that’s another area where he can separate himself from his peers. What stood out in the first two plays below is that he sets his pivot foot when his opponent catches the ball. This allows his body to stay flexible to counter a drive. Bona shows great footwork that gives him a solid base to develop into a plus-defender on the perimeter.

However, an area of development is Bona not biting on fakes, as shown in the third play below. After the fake, he lost his balance which led to the blow-by-drive. Bona gets the blocked shot from behind, but against quicker execution on an NBA floor, that’s likely two points given up.

Against perimeter shooters, Bona shows the ability to close out quickly, using his long wingspan. An important note is that his wingspan isn’t officially measured at last year’s NBA Draft Combine, but the eye test shows it’s in the range of 7 feet. The most important aspect of his closeouts however are his quickness and good first step that helps him accelerate and get to the perimeter quickly.

With the big man’s task being guarding the interior, it’s a good sign that Bona is there to meet a potential driver at the level of the free-throw level. Where the average NBA big man struggles to close out quickly after kick-out passes, Bona shows the contrary. This makes it feasible that Bona will be comfortable in guarding against spot-up shooters at the next level. That’s the most crucial test of Bona being able to contribute to keeping a team’s defensive rating neutral, thus leading to early playing time.

To solidify Bona’s reputation as a multipositional defender, his plays against cutters are an effective measure of how he’ll likely do on an NBA floor. In the second play below, we see Bona show good awareness of the backdoor cutter, showing him being vocal and coaching his teammate.

The third play shows how effective Bona is at using his physical tools to be an effective rim protector. The defense gets collapsed by the dribble-drive, leading to Bona’s timely rotating with his help defense. His fluid hips led to him turning quickly after the drop-off pass. Perfect execution on his part. The vertical pop also makes up for most of the size disadvantage he’ll face against the average NBA dunker’s spot finisher.

An igniting factor of the above-mentioned is a better-spaced NBA floor. In college basketball, there isn’t much space to operate within the painted area, which makes it less challenging to guard compared to the league. Bona’s quickness and hip mobility will help him with guarding against cutters more fluidly.

NBA Draft Projection

Bona’s athleticism is what an NBA team is buying with his profile. The Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year is an NBA-ready defender who can play as a pick-and-roll defender and a roaming multi-positional defender inside the arc. A team that looks to solidify their interior defense will come out happy after drafting Bona this summer.

The value-dropper of his profile is the lack of offensive versatility, as Bona will get the majority of his production as the play-finisher or his activity on the offensive glass. Those big men have a chance of sticking in the league via other variables, with passing being Bona’s most important one. Bona will play G League-heavy minutes in the first year of his career Bona to improve his offense.

Sacrificing a team’s offensive rating to improve their defense is a realistic outcome for some teams in the league. Therefore, it’s likely that Bona will draw enough interest this summer that’ll lead to getting his name called on draft night. Based on the pros and cons of his profile, I project Bona to be an early second-round pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.