As the Oklahoma City Thunder continue to look like the NBA’s undisputed best team, Nikola Topic has dealt with a personal matter away from the team. Sam Presti announced on Oct. 30 that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and that he’d start chemotherapy.
Topic had testicular surgery on Oct. 6. That came a day after he made his preseason debut. It turned out that the procedure was to figure out if the 20-year-old had testicular cancer, which he did. The Thunder and his medical group are very confident he’ll be able to bounce back from this.
The Thunder added Topic with the No. 12 pick of the 2024 NBA draft. He missed all of last season recovering from a torn ACL. His NBA debut has been delayed once again with his testicular cancer diagnosis.
Publicly addressing it for the first time since it was announced, Topic took to social media to let Thunder fans know how he’s doing while dealing with a pretty rare situation for an active NBA player.
Topic wrote in an Instagram post: “Thank you for all the support, I’ll be back even stronger.”
Good to see Topic show love for all of the support he’s received since his diagnosis. The Thunder await his eventual return, but for now, what’s important is to deal with his testicular cancer. Presti pointed out it’s one of the more curable cases of cancer among males.