Feb. 13, 2026, 4:01 p.m. CT
Chilling at the scorer’s table, Nikola Topic checked in. The usual nature of an NBA substitution gained sentimental meaning. After two years battling injuries and an illness, the 20-year-old finally logged a stat for the first time since he joined the Oklahoma City Thunder.
On a night with just a handful of games, Topic’s NBA debut was the headliner. Less than four months after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, he made his long-anticipated first appearance in an OKC uniform in a 110-93 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Topic finished with two points and one assist in 12 minutes off the bench. We’ll see what his role is moving forward, but that’s a question for another day. It’s been quite the journey to get to that point.
The Thunder added Topic with the No. 12 pick of the 2024 NBA draft. He missed the entire 2024-25 season recovering from a torn ACL. Finally cleared, he played the 2025 Summer League and the preseason opener. In it, he showed flashes of a high-end playmaker with nice feel around the rim.
And then, Topic’s world was completely shaken. He underwent testicular surgery to determine if he had cancer. That turned out to be the case, as Thunder GM Sam Presti told the media in Oct. 2025. His basketball ambitions were placed on the back burner.
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Over the next three months, Topic fought for his life. Three rounds of chemotherapy later, he finally flipped the page of that laborious chapter. A couple of G League games were enough to get called up. For the first time in his career, the 20-year-old’s name was absent from OKC’s injury report.
Here’s what the Thunder had to say about Topic’s unreal journey from testicular cancer to logging NBA minutes that makes this whole basketball thing feel trivial in comparison:
Mark Daigneault
On Topic’s return: “He’s done an incredible job in the face of a lot of different obstacles and adversities. For a young person, he’s shown tremendous resilience, optimism, professionalism, consistency, steadiness. He’s an impressive young guy. He was before that. But he did an ACL and another more significant setback. I’m incredibly happy for him to be able to dress tonight. I would say in the Blue games, he played short minutes. It’s his first live-action in a long, long time. The purpose of getting him dressed tonight is just to get him used to game day in uniform for the first time, and so we’ll see how it goes. But it’s a huge accomplishment for him to get to this point.”
On Topic’s debut: “Just thrilled for him. He’s obviously been through a ton of adversity in his life the last couple of years. He’s a young guy who all he wants to do is play basketball, and that’s been taken from him a couple of different times. For him to work himself to this point and get himself on the floor is a great accomplishment. I love watching the team respond to him both during and after the game. I can’t help but think of his family as well. I have young kids at home. It’s pretty hard to even think about what his family’s gone through as well. It hasn’t just been him. He’s got a wonderful family that loves him very much. That was through this with him the entire time. So I’m thrilled for them, and certainly a really good feel-good night for his family, for him and for our team.”
On why now for Topic: “What’s important to remember is he played two very short stretches of Blue minutes earlier this week. This was just like a unique pocket to get him in with our team with very little expectations. From a performance standpoint, he’s in the infant stages of returning to full game shape. What chemotherapy does to your body is really remarkable. It’s crazy what it does to you physically. So the road back from that is different for everybody. It’s highly challenging. If his peak athleticism is a 10 out of 10, he’s not even close to that right now in terms of conditioning, athleticism, strength, all the things that that does to your body. So it would be unfair to evaluate him in this context. We’re just happy he got out there tonight and is on that track back. That’s the most important thing.”
On Topic’s game: “You saw stuff coming out of the draft. Obviously, lead guard, elite passer, great IQ, mature beyond his years as a basketball player, but a long road ahead.”
On Topic’s benchmarks to play: “Obviously finished chemotherapy, and then the process. That’s not an endpoint by any stretch, physically. Getting himself to a place where using strength training, all of our testing with him that they do, making sure that he’s in a good spot to continue his progression on the court. I’m not privy to every little detail. Then, working himself back in on our workouts, getting his breathing going, and then building that up to one-on-one, three-on-three, eventually five-on-five, like this week. We’re in the early stages of that return to performance. He’s now playing again, but it’s going to take a while for him to be his full self again. Just based on what he’s been through. But he obviously can get some stuff done.”
Chet Holmgren
On Topic’s battle with cancer: “I don’t ever want to try and say that I can fully understand or comprehend everything that he’s been through. With my situation, I was fighting to get back to my career. Anybody who’s battling cancer is fighting for their life. I could never begin to understand what that’s like. It just speaks to the strength of Top and who he is as a person. It would’ve been very justified for him, the way everybody would ground him down, sulk and be mad at the world, because the kid he is, he doesn’t deserve that. We’re all just so happy that he was able to battle through that. Get back to hooping. You see a lot bigger smile on his face when he’s able to be out there with his shoes on. I thought he had a really good game tonight. He could’ve made 100 shots, missed 100 shots tonight. It was an amazing game for him.”
On Topic’s playstyle: “He’s a unique player. Feels like on the team, he’s probably the most past-first guy. He’s out there really trying to put guys in advantageous situations, and then look to score second. We kinda got to learn that when he’s out on the floor, and learn to play with him a little bit. As we get better with him, then he continues to get better. I think he’s going to be really good.”