Late Sunday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder unceremoniously laid the groundwork to part ways with one of their recent lottery projects. They have declined Nikola Topic's 2027-28 team option of $7.5 million. Meaning that he'll be a free agent this upcoming summer.
The Thunder continue to be mindful of their finances. For the foreseeable future, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace will make up over three-fourths of their payroll. All four have started — or will soon start — hefty contract extensions. That doesn't even include a possible new deal for Ajay Mitchell and others.
Because of that, the Thunder simply can't afford to pick up a not-so-cheap fourth-year option for Topic — who has 10 NBA games under his
belt through three seasons. But zooming out to the big picture, the fact that cutting bait from him was such a no-brainer reveals another thought exercise about his forgettable time in OKC. Is he Sam Presti's biggest draft swing-and-miss ever? I think you could make a sound argument for it.
Before we dive into it, let's address the elephant in the room — Topic basically missed his entire second year dealing with testicular cancer. The scary illness was discovered in Oct. 2025. Over the next three months, he went through several rounds of chemotherapy before his eventual return right before the 2026 NBA All-Star break.
Obviously, talking about Topic's cancer diagnosis must be treated with extreme care and sympathy. It's borderline unprecedented to see an active NBA player deal with such a reality that goes beyond the court. I think the Thunder handled it with the right grace and patience. They afforded the then-20-year-old the opportunity to unplug from basketball and undergo treatment to eventually cure himself.
There's no underselling just how frightening that development was for Topic. I mean, he's just a kid who had to go through chemotherapy in a foreign country. Presti, Mark Daigneault and the rest of the Thunder were extremely supportive in circling their arms around him in such a life-altering episode. Thankfully, he's past that and has resumed his NBA career since then.
Even aside from Topic's lost second year, his other two years have also been derailed by normal basketball injuries. First off, the Thunder took him with the No. 12 pick of the 2024 NBA draft — fully aware he'd miss the entire 2024-25 season with a torn ACL he sustained in May 2024. That's quite the risky gamble to make. Sure, you could argue he only fell to OKC because of the knee injury, but that didn't mean you had to pick a guy who was already going to miss one of the four years he's under team control.
And then this past summer, Topic had back surgery in June 2026. He was expected to be ready by the 2026-27 NBA training camp. We're seven games into the 2026-27 regular season and still don't know when/if he'll suit up. And that's become more prevalent in recent days considering just how beat up OKC is. It needs NBA-capable bodies right now. He's missing out on a golden opportunity to fill that need.
Considering Topic's rocky start to his NBA journey — and that's putting it mildly — you could argue that he represents OKC's biggest whiff in franchise history. To put into context, let's look at every top-12 pick under the Presti regime in terms of games played in OKC and win shares accumulated. It's not a precise science per se, but it gives us a fair ballpark estimate of value. In an ideal world, a lottery pick is a rotation player at worst.
Kevin Durant had 107.9 win shares in 641 games; Jeff Green had 14.3 win shares in 289 games; Russell Westbrook had 96.9 win shares in 821 games; James Harden had 21.0 win shares in 220 games; Cole Aldrich had 0.8 win shares in 44 games; Steven Adams had 45.2 win shares in 530 games; Domantas Sabonis had 0.8 win shares in 81 games; Josh Giddey had 8.6 win shares in 210 games; Holmgren has 21.5 win shares in 186 games; Ousmane Dieng had 2.3 win shares in 136 games; Williams has 23.9 win shares in 251 games; Wallace has 14.5 win shares in 230 games; Aday Mara has 0.2 win shares in seven games.
Topic has 0.0 win shares in 10 games. That's easily the lowest win shares in that group and only beats Mara (for now) in terms of games played. The latter should change in about a week — knock on wood, of course.
The Thunder's whole plan to keep their contention window wide open is hitting on the lottery picks gifted to them by other NBA franchises. The Houston Rockets handed them the No. 12 pick in the 2024 NBA draft. To waste that is the type of mistake that seems small in a vacuum, but has ripple effects on the rest of the roster and upcoming years.
That said, I would be remiss not to mention that the 2024 NBA draft class is one of the weaker ones in recent memory. Some of the names taken after Topic were Devin Carter, Bub Carrington and Dalton Knecht. Let's not forget that Zaccharie Risacher was the No. 1 pick. So this isn't a scenario as painful as OKC's miss in 2015, where it finished a pick shy of Devin Booker and instead settled for Cameron Payne.
But that's beside the point. You need more from a top-12 pick. Topic has played zero consequential games in three years. Illness and injuries have completely derailed his time in OKC. I know it's still theoretically possible for it to work out once he returns this season, but it's just difficult to envision him having such a strong stretch that the money-cognizant organization will bring him back on a new deal this upcoming summer.
And if you're Topic and all the Thunder can offer you is a measly one-year, super-cheap deal, why stay? The 21-year-old would be better off going elsewhere for a fresh start. Specifically, somewhere not as loaded at guard and have minutes to hand out in a low-leverage situation. If he wants to salvage his NBA career, that's honestly his best bet. Regardless if he's moved by the 2027 NBA trade deadline or if OKC truly lets him play out a contract year.
It's a shame that the Thunder got literally nothing out of Topic from the basketball court. As of now, at least. I know a lot of that is out of both parties' control, but in a results-oriented industry like the NBA, you can still chalk up his time in OKC as a failure while also being mindful and feeling for his worst-case scenario illness and injury history.
Thankfully for the Thunder, they also added Mitchell in the same draft class. He was the No. 38 pick of the 2024 NBA draft and was the rare two-way rookie who never suited up in the G League. On the flip side, the 24-year-old is one of Presti's best finds ever. Expect them to fudge the financial numbers to keep him around for the long haul. And to a lesser extent, Jared McCain's arrival has also made the 2024 draft class a success for OKC — albeit, they had to give up assets to acquire him in a trade and it's unknown if they're willing to give him a second deal. Especially since he's still a work in progress.
But the Thunder's easy decision to essentially move on from Topic represents one of Presti's rare lottery misses. I guess even someone as accomplished and decorated as him has his fair share of shortcomings. This is the NBA's Christopher Nolan's version of 'Dunkirk.'
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Is Nikola Topic OKC's biggest NBA draft swing-and-miss ever?
