{"id":476900,"date":"2026-02-13T08:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476900\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:01:21","slug":"nikola-topic-makes-thunder-debut-after-testicular-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476900\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Topic makes Thunder debut after testicular cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY — Nikola Topic<\/a> made his NBA debut Thursday night for the Thunder<\/a> and scored his first points after undergoing treatment for testicular cancer.<\/p>\n

The Serbian guard was the 12th pick in the 2024 NBA draft. He missed all of last season with a knee injury he suffered before the draft and had not played this season after receiving a cancer diagnosis during the preseason. He had a procedure in October, then underwent chemotherapy and worked his way back into shape.<\/p>\n

He entered Thursday’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> late in the first quarter and received a loud ovation. He scored his only points on a jumper from near the free throw line early in the second quarter. He finished with two points, one rebound and one assist in a 110-93 loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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“Just thrilled for him,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.<\/p>\n

“He’s obviously been through a ton of adversity in his life in the last couple years. He’s a young guy that all he wants to do is play basketball and that’s been taken from him a couple of different times, and so for him to work himself to this point, get himself on the floor is a great accomplishment. … Certainly a really good feel-good night for his family, for him and for our team despite the fact that we didn’t play our best game.”<\/p>\n

Daigneault emphasized that Topic is still in the beginning stages of returning to “full game shape.”<\/p>\n

“This was just like a unique pocket to get him in with our team with very little expectations from a performance standpoint,” the coach said.<\/p>\n

“We’re just happy he got out there tonight and is on that track back. That’s the most important thing.”<\/p>\n

Topic had seven points and seven assists in 16 minutes for the Thunder’s G League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue, in a 137-135 overtime victory over the Sioux Falls Skyforce on Monday night.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY — Nikola Topic made his NBA debut Thursday night for the Thunder and scored his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-476900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}