NBA Rumors: Highly-touted Thunder rookie to miss 2024-25 NBA season with injury

NBA Rumors: Oklahoma City Thunder's highly-touted rookie is expected to miss the entire 2024-25 NBA season due to injury.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are one of the hottest young teams in the league at the moment. Finishing as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference during the regular season, it's clear that the team's future is very bright even after losing in the Western Conference semifinals to the Dallas Mavericks.

Equipped with another lottery pick heading into the 2024 NBA Draft, the Thunder's young core added another potentially promising prospect in the way of Nikola Topic. However, after suffering a pre-draft injury, Topic is slated to miss the entire 2024-25 NBA season as he recovers from ACL surgery.

Topic was selected with the 12th overall pick from the 2024 NBA Draft by the Thunder at least in part due to his injury. If it wasn't for his injury, Topic probably would've been taken much higher in the lottery. However, now that it's being reported that Topic will miss his entire rookie season, it makes sense as to why he fell down the board on draft night.

Nikola Topic will be in a position to bounce back in a huge way

Despite the injury that Topic is recovering from, he may be in an ideal spot to bounce back heading into next season. With how the Thunder handled the loss of Chet Holmgren during his rookie season, there's reason to believe that Topic will be put in a position to have a strong return when he's healthy.

Theoretically, Topic translates as a natural fit as more of a playmaking guard next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. If he can get healthy and play up to his potential, he could certainly add a different element that OKC doesn't have in the backcourt - one it partially lost when Oklahoma City traded Josh Giddey to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for Alex Caruso.

But that's the ceiling that could emerge for the Thunder's backcourt in the next few seasons. The good news for OKC is that they didn't necessarily need Topic to be ready to contribute from day one. They could afford him sitting out his rookie season as he recovers from injury.

The Thunder are quickly rising in the Western Conference and should be considered one of the favorites to earn a top seed once again this season. And the fact that the Thunder is still scratching the surface of the potential they have as a unit is a great sign for their future.