Oklahoma City Thunder guard Nikola Topic is undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, general manager Sam Presti announced on Thursday, October 30.
"[Topic] didn't want to make this information public until he had begun the actual treatments, which he has," Presti, 47, told reporters. "He's been in here, he's training, he's working out through this entire process. As we all know, this would be a challenging treatment process to go through."
The Thunder selected Topic, 20, with the 12th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft before a torn ACL sidelined him for the entire 2024-25 season.
The team then announced in early October that he would miss four to six weeks to start this season after undergoing a "testicular procedure," but did not provide further details. Presti said Thursday that the procedure was necessary to determine whether he had testicular cancer and that a biopsy confirmed his diagnosis.
Topic has still yet to make his NBA debut and there is no timeline for his return to action, though Presti said Topic's doctors are "extremely positive" about his long-term outlook.
"Our only expectations for him are to focus on this," he said. "This is his most important priority. He'll be back playing basketball when he's able to, but we're not putting any time length or expectations on that, obviously. He has our total support, encouragement and love."
Presti added, "He has a tremendous group of oncologists both at OU, at MD Anderson, and they are extremely positive about his outlook in dealing with this situation.
Topic is not the first NBA player to be diagnosed with testicular cancer during his career. Former Denver Nuggets player Nene got his diagnosis during the 2007-08 season and missed 76 days of action. He eventually returned to the court and played 11 more years after that.
"[Topic] is a really remarkable, remarkable guy," Presti said. "I think everybody knows that, that's been around him. Extraordinarily mature, composed, resilient. He has all the tools that you could ask for somebody to take on and conquer the situation."
Topic reflected over the summer on what it meant to miss his rookie season, explaining that he wanted to take positives away from an otherwise devastating injury.
"It was hard, you know? I didn't play a basketball game for a very long time, and that was really hard," he said in a video posted by the Thunder via YouTube in July. "But, as you go through that process, you learn something about yourself that you didn't know you had. You didn't know how strong you were and how human bodies are strong. I'll say I took the positives from it and learned from it."
"I feel good now," he added. "It was a little bit rough at the beginning, especially at the back-to-back. It was pretty weird that I had to play back-to-back games. I don't know, it was weird. I didn't know what to do; sleep, take a nap. It was really weird, but I'm getting used to it."
The Thunder host the Washington Wizards Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET.
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