The Oklahoma City Thunder have nailed most of their lottery picks in recent years, so it shouldn’t be a shocker to see them take a heat check with the No. 12 pick of the 2024 NBA draft.
The Thunder’s addition of Nikola Topic is a risky move that won’t see the benefits of it for a while. He recently partially tore his ACL and that will knock him out for next season.
Even before the injury, Topic was seen as a high-risk, high-reward prospect. He’s a fantastic playmaker who is a crafty driver but a lack of shot and strength could be detrimental.
The upside for Topic is he’s only 18 years old, which means he has plenty of room to grow both with his frame and skills. It’ll need to be a project start from scratch, but he has the potential to be a decent outside shooter.
Even though ACL tears aren’t a career-altering injury as they were a decade ago, there’s always a degree of uncertainty involved. But it sounds like the Thunder are fully prepared to help Topic’s recovery.
“The league put in some rules this year where everybody has access to the new — to all of the new players that are in the draft,” Sam Presti said. “We’ve seen all of the imaging. Everything that we’ve seen is — I don’t want to say suitable, but we’re comfortable with, I want to say.”
This isn’t new territory for them as Chet Holmgren also had a redshirt year when he suffered a Lisfranc injury in the 2022 offseason. It gave him a chance to slowplay his NBA experience. Safe to say he’s made a full recovery.
“Myself and Donnie Strack, our director of medical, who’s been here for 17 years now, traveled out to visit Nikola,” Presti said. “He examined him in person, was able to spend some time with him.”
Topic will get the same unique chance Holmgren did of learning the ins and outs of the NBA at a slower pace than the usual rookie — who is doing it between games. The Thunder believes that can be beneficial.
“Our experience with Chet and the time that we used with him during his first year was certainly a factor into the way we thought about this opportunity,” Presti said. “And I think we learned some things in that instance.”
Whether or not Topic was the right selection will be a question unanswered for several years. The Thunder preaches patience and that will be tested with Topic as he focuses on his recovery and sharpens his craft.
