For two of their young pieces, the hurdles keep appearing. The Oklahoma City Thunder have received very little help from their past two NBA draft classes. And little of that has to do with their talent. Now, add another obstacle that Nikola Topic and Thomas Sorber have to check off.
In his 2026-27 preseason press conference, Sam Presti revealed that Topic and Sorber are going to need a little bit more time to get going. They're both expected to be limited in OKC's training camp — which takes place from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2.
Both Topic and Sorber underwent offseason surgery. Topic had back surgery in June 2026; Sorber had knee surgery in July 2026. Both were initially expected to be ready to go by training camp. Sounds like there has been a bit of a detour
in those plans.
"He's going to be limited in camp, partly because — and this is a little bit of the case with Thomas Sorber as well," Presti said. "Because they've missed so much time with another injury, when they're coming back from a new thing. In this case, it's a back. Sorber had the scope in July on the same knee. But that's compounding on the fact that they both missed time in their draft year."
It's nothing disastrous, but Topic and Sorber continue to deal with thousands of papercuts at this point. Despite being top-15 picks in back-to-back NBA drafts, the Thunder have seen very little of them. Topic missed the entire 2024-25 season with a torn ACL. And then a scary testicular cancer diagnosis sidelined him for most of the 2025-26 season.
Meanwhile, Sorber missed the entire 2025-26 season with a torn ACL. Before that, he missed the last month of his collegiate career at Georgetown due to foot surgery he underwent in Feb. 2025. All in all, he'll go about 18 months between games. That's a long time for a 20-year-old.
The hope is that Topic and Sorber are part of the group solution to revamp their lost depth. The Thunder took a hit this summer with cost-cutting moves. Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins were all traded out East to avoid severe financial tax penalties.
Now, OKC has a large vacuum of minutes and shot attempts up for grabs. They hope Topic and Sorber could sponge some of those up. Even if they get a late start to their campaign with a limited training camp and — possibly — no preseason action.
"It's a much more complicated return-to-play program because it's not just from one injury. It's a big layoff where there hasn't been a lot of live play," Presti said. "So we're trying to figure out how to do that because it's almost like two years in both cases."
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Sam Presti provides injury updates on Nikola Topic, Thomas Sorber
