RealGM

The Oklahoma City Thunder announced that rookie guard Nikola Topic underwent successful surgery to repair a left ACL tear. Topic is expected to miss the entirety of the 2024-25 season to rehab from the injury.

The Thunder drafted Topic with the 12th pick in the first-round of the 2024 NBA Draft. The 6-foot-6 point guard was injured while playing for Crvena zvezda in Serbia in mid-May. Topic may have initially suffered the ACL tear in early-January, but was diagnosed with a sprained left knee. He returned to play in late-April before being injured approximately three weeks later.

Oklahoma City has experience dealing with a first-round pick missing their first NBA season. Chet Holmgren missed the 2022-23 season due to a fractured foot. Holmgren then returned to have a success rookie season in 2024-24.

Via RealGM Staff Report

Curious why the Spurs didn't draft him? they could've drafted and stashed him instead of trading for picks 7 years from now. Interesting OKC drafted him, essentially looks like a Giddey replacement

Joshuan3 wrote:Curious why the Spurs didn't draft him? they could've drafted and stashed him instead of trading for picks 7 years from now. Interesting OKC drafted him, essentially looks like a Giddey replacement

A lot of GM's just aren't willing to gamble their jobs on a top 10 pick with injuries like an ACL even with the upside of the player. The last time that happened I think was Nerlens Noel but he had elite defensive potential.

Joshuan3 wrote:Curious why the Spurs didn't draft him? they could've drafted and stashed him instead of trading for picks 7 years from now. Interesting OKC drafted him, essentially looks like a Giddey replacement

the spurs know that wemby is going to be too impactful and they need to take big swings to get wemby something resembling a star. castle is the biggest boom/bust potential guy in the draft because of his lack of shooting combined with his explosiveness. This is like okc reaching really far to get russ because they saw the talent of kd wouldnt allow them to build through the draft for very long. Not making moves like drafting castle are what doomed the cavs, and made it soo hard to build a sustainable team around luka doncic. They had to get kyrie at a time when nobody wanted him and had to take serious risks with gafford and pj because they had loser reputations.