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NEED TO KNOW
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Oklahoma City Thunder prospect Nikola Topic returned to basketball Monday night after a year-long knee injury and a testicular cancer diagnosis.
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Subject was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the start of the 2025 NBA season.
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Topic made his season debut with the organization’s G-League team on February 9 after successfully completing cancer treatment.
After a year-long knee injury followed by a cancer diagnosis, NBA hopeful Nikola Topic was back on a basketball court on Monday, February 9.
The 20-year-old Serbian basketball player made his NBA G-League debut for the Oklahoma City Thunder’s developmental team, the Oklahoma City Blue, scoring seven points and seven assists in the team’s 137-135 overtime win over the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
It was a few years in the making for Topic, who was drafted 12th overall by the Thunder in the 2024 NBA Draft. The highly touted prospect had torn a knee ligament two months before the draft, meaning the Thunder had to wait nearly a year for their draft pick to start playing for their G-League development team last season, according to The associated press.
However, after just a few games of the 2025 season, Topic was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti said Topic remained active and trained during his chemotherapy treatments, PEOPLE reported last year.
“He’s here, he’s training, he’s training,” Presti told reporters at the time, adding that the team had “no expectations” of their player to return to the field before he was ready.
Topic’s agent told Serbian Arena Sport TV on Sunday, February 8, that Topic’s “chemotherapy was completed successfully” and that he was ready to return to basketball full-time, according to The United States todaythe NBA blog OKC Thunderwire.
After Topic’s debut Monday night, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault told reporters he was “thrilled” to learn the NBA prospect was back on the court.
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“We are all collectively excited to have him come back and play basketball,” Daigneault told reporters, according to AP. “I know he missed it a lot, and it’s so good for him mentally to get his feet back under him.”
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Daigneault stressed that Topic’s return was a “great accomplishment”, regardless of the rest of the young player’s career in the NBA.
“I just can’t say enough about him as a guy, his mental toughness, his maturity, his resilience,” the Thunder coach said. “He hasn’t played much basketball in the last couple of years, and he comes out of a year-long rehab and immediately gets a surprising diagnosis and goes through three rounds of chemotherapy. So for him to get back on the court is just an incredible accomplishment, and we’re incredibly happy for him.”
Read the original article on People
