OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Oklahoma City Thunder rookie Nikola Topic will miss at least four weeks after having a testicular procedure on Monday.<\/p>\n
The team said the 20-year-old Serbian guard will be re-evaluated in a maximum of six weeks.<\/p>\n
Topic was the 12th overall pick in the 2024 NBA draft and missed the entire season while recovering from a torn ACL. He played in summer league this year, and started the preseason opener Sunday against Charlotte, finishing with 10 points and seven assists in 31 minutes in Oklahoma City\u2019s 135-114 win.<\/p>\n
The preseason was expected to be a critical part of working Topic into the team. He\u2019s the only new piece on a roster that largely remained the same after winning the NBA title.<\/p>\n
Topic said on media day that he was looking forward to assisting the Thunder\u2019s trio of stars, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I help them maybe like, get the ball up the court or something like that,\u201d Topic said. \u201cAnd just make some passes, get defense off their backs, like try to get attention to some other way. Try to free them up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veteran guard Alex Caruso said on media day that he expects Topic to be a good addition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for him, it\u2019s just about trying to fine-tune his game and accelerate that learning curve that comes with being a new player in the NBA,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cAnd for him, I think he\u2019ll be fine because he\u2019s pretty emotionless, to put it lightly. He\u2019s starting to make jokes now which is great. He\u2019s starting to get more comfortable. For him, I think it\u2019s just about letting him know that making mistakes is OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thunder forward Kenrich Williams had an arthroscopic procedure on his left knee last week, and his timeline for a return is unclear. Rookie center Thomas Sorber will miss the season with a torn ACL in his right knee.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/p>\n
Cliff Brunt, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Oklahoma City Thunder rookie Nikola Topic will miss at least four weeks after having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-193873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}