From Amir Johnson and Al Horford to Dwight Howard and Paul Reed, many players have been tasked with being Joel Embiid’s backup center throughout his career with the Philadelphia 76ers. It’s a tough spot to fill, and hard to say if any player truly “succeeded” in it, but there’s only been one player brought back to reprise the role.
Andre Drummond is about to embark on his 14th NBA season, and for the third time in his career, he is starting the year on the Philadelphia 76ers roster. The first time came in his age-28 season, but he was traded midseason in the Ben Simmons-James Harden swap.
Now, Drummond is 32 and looks poised to start the 2025-26 season as Embiid’s backup over less experienced bigs like new addition Trendon Watford, rookie Johni Broome or second-year player Adem Bona.
The Drummond the 76ers are getting is not the Drummond of yesteryear, who was remarkably serviceable in his first stint as Embiid’s backup in 2021-22. While he still gets his eight rebounds a game, he has lost a step over the years, and his ability to sustain his role on the team comes into question.
It's time for the 76ers to move on from Andre Drummond
Last season, in the 40 games that he played for Philadelphia, he sported a career-worst -3.2 BPM (Box +/-). He also missed time due to injuries to his toe and ankle.
This question looms ever more expansively over the months of April and May, when everything on the court is tighter and every bucket is that much more elusive. Sixers fans know all too well the pain of not having a stopgap for the vacuum left by Embiid’s brief absences to the bench in the postseason.
In Game 7 of the 2019 series against the Toronto Raptors, famous for Kawhi’s game-winner, Embiid was on the court for 45 minutes and 12 seconds, with Greg Monroe as the backup. In 1:41 of game time, Monroe was a -9 in a game that was decided on a buzzer beater.
This has been a repeated issue in the playoffs, as Philadelphia unable to stop the bleeding when Embiid comes off the court. He is a +321 in 59 career playoff games and has only ever finished in the negative in 19 of those games. With an unreflective 29-30 playoff record, a pattern begins to emerge.
If the forewarned signs of Drummond’s decline prove to be true, it leaves the Sixers with a question mark at the backup center position come springtime.
One possibility lies in the progress of Adem Bona’s development in his sophomore season. As a rookie, Bona flashed in limited minutes, averaging 5.8 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game and boasting an impressive 7.5 percent block percentage. For context, that’s the fourth-highest rate of last season among players with over 800 minutes, just behind Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, and Donovan Clingan.
Embiid is on the wrong side of 30, so the amount of backups left in his career could probably be counted on one hand. An answer at the position isn't clear, but it also probably isn't going to be found in Drummond.