{"id":478083,"date":"2026-01-09T21:56:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=478083"},"modified":"2026-01-09T21:56:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:56:47","slug":"nikola-topic-completes-chemotherapy-remains-focused-on-making-nba-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/nikola-topic-completes-chemotherapy-remains-focused-on-making-nba-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Topic Completes Chemotherapy, Remains Focused on Making NBA Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"226\" data-end=\"503\">Determined to overcome the latest and most difficult challenge of his young career, <strong data-start=\"310\" data-end=\"351\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Nikola Topi\u0107<\/span><\/span><\/strong> has <strong data-start=\"356\" data-end=\"414\">completed chemotherapy treatment for testicular cancer<\/strong>, according to an update provided by his agent <strong data-start=\"461\" data-end=\"502\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Mi\u0161ko Ra\u017enatovi\u0107<\/span><\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"505\" data-end=\"748\">The 20-year-old Serbian point guard had already begun light on-court work as part of his recovery process, drawing praise from teammates and head coach <strong data-start=\"657\" data-end=\"698\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Mark Daigneault<\/span><\/span><\/strong> of the <strong data-start=\"706\" data-end=\"747\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/span><\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"750\" data-end=\"1174\">Selected with the <strong data-start=\"768\" data-end=\"811\">12th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft<\/strong>, Topic was forced to miss the entire <strong data-start=\"849\" data-end=\"880\">2024\u201325 championship season<\/strong> while rehabbing a knee injury sustained during his professional career in Europe. After returning to action and impressing during <strong data-start=\"1011\" data-end=\"1044\">two Summer League appearances<\/strong> and throughout the following <strong data-start=\"1074\" data-end=\"1087\">preseason<\/strong>, he appeared poised for a meaningful role in the Thunder\u2019s <strong data-start=\"1147\" data-end=\"1173\">2025\u201326 regular season<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1176\" data-end=\"1327\">However, just as momentum was building, Topic was diagnosed with testicular cancer and immediately began chemotherapy, halting his comeback once again.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1329\" data-end=\"1525\">The Novi Sad native remains sidelined indefinitely, but sources close to the player stress his determination to resume his journey and make his <strong data-start=\"1473\" data-end=\"1495\">official NBA debut<\/strong> as soon as his health allows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nikola Topi\u0107 has completed chemotherapy treatment for testicular cancer, according to an update provided by his agent Mi\u0161ko Ra\u017enatovi\u0107<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":371897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[135],"typology":[179],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-478083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","rumors-rumors-nba","typology-injury"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/02\/Oklahoma-City-Thunder.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478083"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=478083"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=478083"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=478083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}