{"id":602981,"date":"2026-02-14T16:15:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/602981\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T16:15:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:15:58","slug":"thunders-no-12-pick-from-2024-draft-available-to-make-nba-debut-thursday-after-cancer-battle-and-torn-acl-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/602981\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder’s No. 12 pick from 2024 draft available to make NBA debut Thursday, after cancer battle and torn ACL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thunder’s No. 12 pick from 2024 draft available to make NBA debut Thursday, after cancer battle and torn ACL<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Thunder <\/a>have been one of the NBA’s <\/a>most dominant teams over the last 12+ months, but many fans may have forgotten that OKC has a lottery pick from the 2024 NBA Draft stashed, who hasn’t had his NBA debut yet.<\/p>\n

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This former 12th overall pick has gone through two of the most difficult health-related hardships a person could face before even turning 20 years old, but his time to shine might finally come Thursday.<\/p>\n

2024 Thunder lottery pick available to make debut Thursday after overcoming major health battles<\/p>\n

Nikola Topic was just 18 years old in 2024 when he was drafted to the Thunder<\/a> as a lottery pick.<\/p>\n

He was one of several international players to be selected in the lottery of that draft, labeled as a player with a lot of promise and the potential to add another layer of depth to an already stacked Thunder roster.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, Topic tore his ACL before the start of the 2024-25 season, which kept him out for the entire season.<\/p>\n

ACL injuries are somewhat common to see in the NBA, but what happened to Topic after that injury is far from a common occurrence in the NBA, let alone for a teenager.<\/p>\n

Topic was preparing for the 2025-26 season, after almost a full year of ACL rehab, but received frightening news right before the start of the season.<\/p>\n

He was diagnosed with\u00a0testicular cancer just weeks before the season was set to begin, which meant his NBA debut would have to wait, as he had a more serious situation to handle first.<\/p>\n

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Thankfully, he was able to go through rounds of chemotherapy and was able to return relatively soon to practice, as he restarted his attempt to get into game shape, so he could finally make his NBA debut a season and a half after being drafted.<\/p>\n

Topic played in the G-League recently with OKC’s affiliate team, which was a major step towards playing up with the Thunder for the first time.<\/p>\n

After performing well in the G-League, Topic received great news ahead of OKC’s game on Thursday against the Bucks<\/a>, which was that he’d be available to make his NBA debut (via\u00a0@BrandonRahbar<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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It’s not a guarantee he’ll get minutes in the game, but it’s a huge step to be available to play if given the opportunity, as that’s not a situation he’s been fortunate enough to have in his year and a half with the Thunder.<\/p>\n

More NBA articles:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thunder’s No. 12 pick from 2024 draft available to make NBA debut Thursday, after cancer battle and torn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,1016,1315,10510,6,12,3110,693],"class_list":["post-602981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-isaiah-stewart","tag-lottery-pick","tag-miles-bridges","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-nikola-topic","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116069884455307711","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}