CAMDEN, N.J. — Heading into the 2025-26 season, the Philadelphia 76ers knew they had to figure out who would be the backup center to Joel Embiid. Coach Nick Nurse and his staff have plenty of options to look at in training camp and in the preseason and he knew it was going to be a battle to earn that spot.

“I expect it to be a great competition for that spot,” Nurse said on media day on Friday. “I just really wanna see it all play out and just watch them kind of fight it out in the next month or so.”

Of course, the Sixers can turn to veteran big man Andre Drummond who the Sixers brought back in the 2024 offseason. The 2-time All-Star is a ferocious rebounder, but was limited to 40 games in 2024-25 due to injury. Therefore, Adem Bona was able to receive a lot of minutes as a rookie and show what he is able to do out on the floor so he will get a chance to be the backup in 2025-26.

However, it isn’t just Drummond and Bona. The Sixers can also turn to rookie big man Johni Broome or newcomers Jabari Walker and Dominick Barlow. Although, Nurse has stated that he sees Barlow more as a 4 than a 5. When considering how important the backup center spot is for this group, it’s huge for the Sixers, and Nurse, to nail this down.

“It’s competitive,” Nurse said on Sunday. “There’s three, four, five of them, depending on how far you want to go with it. I assume you’re not talking about Joel, you’re talking about the rest of them. So it’s Bona, it’s Drum, it’s Broome, it’s Walker. Barlow maybe a little bit, too. He just looks comfortable enough at the four to me. I think they know they’re in a battle. If you came to watch practice and you were watching that position, you’d see a lot of competition going on between that whole group.”

All of those big men offer up a different skill set. The following are their numbers from the 2024-25 season:

Drummond: 7.3 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 1.0 spgBona: 5.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 1.2 bpgWalker: 5.2 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 38.9% 3FG (1.2 attempts)Broome: 18.6 ppg, 10.8 rpg, 2.1 bpg (college stats at Auburn)Barlow: 4.2 ppg, 2.4 rpg

Drummond has made his name as a terrific rebounder and a burly big man in the paint while Bona morphed into an intimidating shot blocker in his rookie season. Then, there’s Walker who can do multiple things on the floor such as rebounding, knocking down an open 3, and taking advantage of matchups. Broome is a physical player, but also has a finesse game and Barlow is athletic as they come.

Nurse and the Sixers will have to decide who the best option is to be the backup center to Embiid. These are good players who can all step up and produce so Philadelphia does have to feel comfortable with what they have in front of them at this stage of the process.