Magic 8 Ballers: The Tantalizing Topic of Topić
Magic 8 Ballers: The Tantalizing Topic of Topić
Even after a tough week in June of intel and medical maladies, there are many reasons that Nikola Topić should still be a high draft pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
Less than a year ago, I had the pleasure of joining No Ceilings. I can’t say I saw it coming, no matter how many “possible kaleidoscopic futures” there were, to quote my first article for the site. Thus, it’s fitting that my article to (likely) close out the 2024 draft cycle bears some eerie symmetry to the first one I wrote, The Marvelous Mr. Mara.
Alongside Aday Mara, it’s fun and instructive to go back and consider how much change and upheaval the 2024 NBA draft class has seen. In the No Ceilings BIG Board V.1, Justin Edwards, Ron Holland, Ja’Kobe Walter, Isaiah Collier, Scotty Middleton, and Riley Kugel landed in the Top 10. In contrast, others like Izan Almansa, Omaha Billew, Elliot Cadeau, and Elmarko Jackson also featured in the first round.
Only half of those players still stand in our most recent board, BIG Board V.8, which speaks to how the stocks and evaluations of players have zigged and zagged this season. Coming into the season, players like Edwards, Mara, Kugel, and others did have palpable buzz and reason to be excited. It’s as much about their bumps in the road as it is about the growth and evidence for players like Dalton Knecht, Rob Dillingham, and Devin Carter to earn lottery looks.
One player who burst onto the scene early in the cycle and maintained his buzz was Nikola Topić. After an excellent early stretch at Mega MIS that was impossible to ignore, Topić landed at #23 on the initial BIG Board. Since then, Topić has been an ironclad lock in the Top 5, peaking at #2 and never dipping below #4 on any NC BIG Board.
You’d think that would make Topić a lock heading into the home stretch of the draft, but he’s had one of the tougher months regarding health, buzz, and hype in recent memory for a prospect. Thus, with the draft less than a week away and more questions than answers, it’s time to vigorously shake the Magic 8 Ball and take one last yawning dive into Nikola Topić’s game.
Quick Shakes of the 8 Ball
Nikola Topić looks like a prototypical modern offensive point guard as a player. Standing at 6’6”, Topić uses his height to see over defenders, his quick burst to blast past them toward the rim, and his prodigious basketball brain to either adjust to finish at the rim or whip a perfect pass to a waiting teammate. He’s best with the ball in his hands, as his first step, lay-up package, and a plethora of passes are all utilized to their fullest potential as an on-ball creator.
Before we click on the tape and sort through the stats, it’s worth looking at the twists and turns that have led Topić from being a consensus top prospect to potentially slipping in the draft. Hailing from Novi Sad, Serbia, Topić has spent his youth career in his home country. He entered Crvena Zvezda’s youth system before bouncing around the Serbian League.
He played his first EuroLeague minutes at 16, but most of Topić’s development has come for the Serbian National Team and on loans to various Serbian clubs. He spent time with Slodes, OKK Beograd, and, more recently, Mega MIS, with improvements at each stop. Topić truly flexed his muscles as a draft prospect this season, but his performances at ANGT and the FIBA U18 European Championship, where he was named MVP, got the ball rolling even earlier.
What initially kept Topić from starting as a preseason top prospect in 2024 was whether he’d be eligible based on his birthday for the draft. That question was expeditiously answered, which made his games at Mega MIS appointment viewing. In just 16 games, per Synergy, Topić led the team in scoring at 18.4 points, averaging 6.5 assists with a 2.21 assist-to-turnover ratio while also getting to the free-throw line 4.2 times and snagging 1.1 steals per contest.
Topić was the straw that stirred the Mega MIS offensive drink, valiantly leading the team to a 13-3 record. In late December, Crvena Zvezda recalled Topić from his loan in a move that saw Topić return to his boyhood team to play a pivotal but reduced role in their playoff push. It was not the minor role that Topić played there that muddied his draft stock, as that was expected. Instead, a pair of knee injuries he suffered with the team led to the start of his declining buzz.
The first injury, a knee sprain, kept Topić out for a few months. The second knee injury, one he suffered just a few weeks ago, was recently revealed to be a partial ACL tear. While he’s not a particularly vertical player, a serious knee injury can cast a dark cloud for any draft prospect, especially less than a month before the NBA draft. To further compound Topić’s turmoil was confirmation that his wingspan was not +6 inches but smaller than his height (something NC+ subscribers have heard whispers of for a few months).
Faced with a lengthy rehab, less impressive physical tools, and some questions over his reduced production at Crvena Zvezda, Topić has seen his stock take a solid hit. There’s some buzz that he could slip into the late lottery after looking like a top-half lock all season.
In my eyes, however, after going back and watching every game he played, I still think there’s too much raw talent and untapped upside not to take Topić toward the top of the draft, even with his recent injury luck. There’s so much to like about Topić, especially on offense, that I’ve had to break up the “Occult Offense” section into two parts to fully articulate what makes him so special as an offensive basketball player.
Occult Offense, Part 1: Scoring
By and large, Nikola Topić is an offensively skewed NBA draft prospect. Sure, at 6’6” with plus horizontal athleticism, Topić will eventually have the chops to play solid defense at the NBA level. For any team drafting him in the lottery, however, the allure of Topić’s game comes from his masterful skills as a primary ball-handler.
It should also be noted that any team looking at Topić will hopefully do so to keep the ball in his hands. While positional versatility is the name of the game in today’s NBA, Topić isn’t the type of prospect who can cleanly slide into various roles on the court at this juncture in his career.
Instead, let’s appreciate Topić for what he is: the best pure point guard prospect in this draft class. There are a host of talented floor generals in the 2024 class, like Stephon Castle, Rob Dillingham, and Isaiah Collier, to name a few, but Topić has both the clearest translatable NBA skills and the highest upside as a point guard in the class.
While a substantial part of playing point guard is distributing the ball, the modern NBA point guard must be a threat to score the basketball. Players who can’t get to the rim, can’t shoot from a distance, or can’t counter in the mid-range often find their ceilings limited. And while Topić isn’t a three-level scorer, he has some elite attributes that give him a higher floor and ceiling than other point guard prospects.
We’ll start with the backbone of Topić’s scoring and playmaking: his handle. Bigger ball handlers sometimes suffer from a loose or weak handler, but not Topić. He’s deliberate with his dribble’s pace, darting past defenders on one possession before slowing down to get them on his hip the next. He takes the time to set up his crossovers, which are deadly quick on their own, and gets both separation laterally and downhill toward the basket when he drives.
Although 6’6”, Topić isn’t a good vertical athlete. Instead, almost all of his rim pressure comes from his lightning first step and high-quality handle. The combination of the two, alongside his size, makes him one of the more dangerous drivers in the class, which bears out both on tape and by the numbers. Per Synergy, Topić shot 87/132, or 65.9%, on his lay-up attempts across his season at Mega MIS and Crvena Zvezda, earning an “Excellent” rating as a play type.
When you watch Topić attack the basket, it’s clear why he’s such a good finisher. Despite a shorter wingspan and lower vertical, Topić has enough wingspan to finish over defenders. He gets around his man with speed and body control before using clever angles to get the ball to the glass and kiss it into the cup. On his more standard drives from isolations or transition takes, Topić is a blur to watch, streaking toward the hoop before flipping a dainty shot into the basket.
Topić had an “Excellent” rating at Mega MIS in isolation, transition, and pick-and-roll ball-handler plays, with that last one being arguably the most important. Topić is a maestro in the pick-and-roll, as he can fully manipulate the defense to do exactly what he wants. Whether off multiple or delayed screening actions, Topić is always in control of where the defenders are once he turns the corner, which makes most of his lay-up attempts more open than any defense would tolerate.
There have certainly been players in past drafts who’ve been great drivers with little else to show as scorers, but Topić might be the best this year. He’s hard to stop, anticipate, and cover once he gets to the hoop. Combine that with his 4.2 free-throw attempts per game, which he shot at 86.6%, and defense can only vainly hope to keep Topić out of the paint when he wants to get there.
What will initially hamper Topić as a scorer is his jump shot. A faulty jumper can stifle even the best rim assassins, which is what Topić will have to contend with early in his career, but there are positive and negative indicators regarding his jump shot.
Topić’s jumper form could use some work, as he doesn’t generate much lift and shoots the ball mostly in front of his face. That low and slower release point led to him getting a few three-pointers blocked this season, and the windows will only get smaller at the NBA level. As a silver lining, Topić’s form did look consistent across his pull-up threes and spot-up threes.
I specify threes because Topić’s in-between game is currently a bit lacking. It isn’t as glaring when he’s such a good passer, as the delayed feeds on pick-and-roll plays did mitigate his issues, but Topić only shot 5/14 on two-point jumpers and 3/13 on runners and floaters. This represents, outside of his general jump-shooting mechanics, the biggest place where Topić can grow as an offensive threat if he wants to be a star in the NBA.
But back to the jumper! Topić didn’t take too many spot-up jumpers as a primarily on-ball threat, but the results weren’t pretty. Per Synergy, across Mega MIS and Crvena Zvezda, Topić hit 11/41 of his catch-and-shoot three-pointers this year. Shooting 26.8% won’t cut it in the NBA, even if a team puts the ball in Topić’s hands from day one, as he’ll still spend some possessions spacing the floor.
His pull-up shooting from deep was encouraging, as he striped 15/45 pull-up threes this year. Topić looked just a skosh more comfortable on these shots than his standstill shots, which speaks to him getting his shots in rhythm more in this fashion.
He’ll need to find a way to generate that rhythm on catch-and-shoot attempts in the NBA; otherwise, Topić will see a much more cluttered paint than usual. His higher free-throw percentage does at least give him some grace in his eventual potential to improve his shooting, but he has a large enough sample size as a so-so shooter for that to be the baseline expectation.
No matter how good Nikola Topić is as a driver, his ceiling as a team’s offense dive engine will be dictated by his jumper. He’ll need to develop an in-between game too, but the importance of three-point shooting is too crucial for him to ignore.
Compared to some pass-first prospects like Sharife Cooper or Kendall Marshall, however, Topić does have an elite skill for scoring the ball. Increased NBA spacing will help him find lanes to the rim, which is his bread and butter, and he should be able to score at a solid clip, given that the threat of his passing looms even larger for opposing defenses.
Inside Scoring Package: It is Decidedly So
Outside Scoring Package: Reply Hazy, Try Again
Occult Offense, Part 2: Playmaking
I started this piece by labeling Topić the best point guard prospect in the 2024 draft class. That’s lofty praise, given how many parts go into constructing a prototypical floor general. A good point guard can throw every pass in the handbook and knows which one to throw when. They’re a master of pace, controlling the game's speed through their dribbling and eyes. They’re also masters of disguise, hiding counters within misdirections on any given play.
If that sounds complicated, it is. No Ceilings has covered the difficulty of point guards adjusting to the NBA, and sure, Topić will too, but he brings a bevy of starting experience and excellence at that position. With so much proven success in the EuroLeague and FIBA competitions, I’m willing to bet on Topić’s success as a point guard based on his passing.
As a passer, Topić has everything and the kitchen sink. He can put passes on frozen ropes to opposite corners, loft then over multiple pairs of outstretched arms to a waiting lob, or sneak a cheeky bounce pass back door at will. I highlighted how Topić is hard to guard in transition due to his rim finishing, but it's much harder when you throw in his passing. Whether it’s a crisp outlet or a casual flick with one hand to the right player, Topić can’t be contained on a fast break due to his passing chops.
Topić also has a knack for finding open players right in front of the rim, no matter how fast he’s going. His ingrained sense of where his teammates are and the ability to contort his feeds to fit the angle make his plays so impressive.
If he doesn’t get all the way downhill, Topić will often spray the ball outside into the hands of a waiting shooter. He does a marvelous job of putting the right speed on each dish while also hitting his shooters in their hands. It was one of the easiest sources of consistent offense for Mega MIS, even though the team’s main shooters didn’t have banner years from deep.
Topić is best, however, in the same spot he was for his rim pressure: running the pick-and-roll. His height and patience make it nigh impossible to guard, as cutting off dimes at the rim only opens up swings to the corners for wide-open threes. It’s truly joyful to watch Topić poke and prod at a defense with his handle before lofting the proper pass to a wide-open teammate.
Given the proclivity of the pick-and-roll in the modem game, Topić is already proficient in one of the most essential parts of the game. Any team that drafts him could see their offense supercharged with his brand of basketball, whether it’s initially off the bench or as a starting player right away.
There are even more types of passes that Topić hits with regularity. Topić has a natural knack for finding cutters and rollers away from the regular action of a play and hitting them for easy buckets, some of which he opens up with his brilliant passing. He’s also not afraid to make the simpler read for threes, keeping the ball moving in the flow of an offense to guarantee that his team gets a good shot on that possession.
There isn’t a type of pass that Topić can’t do and can’t do quite well. When combined with his 6’6” height and quick thinking, it’s hard to argue that many, if any, point guards in this or other draft classes can process the floor quite like he can. It also gives him a solid floor as an NBA point guard, even as a rookie next year.
That’s not to say he’s a perfect passer, however. Topić averaged 2.9 turnovers at Mega MIS when he was the lead ball-handler. There wasn’t one glaring source for these cough-ups; it was more of a tendency to put too much on his plate on drives into traffic or attempt to get too tight of a window. That’s a common problem for lead ball-handlers, and as long as Topić dominates usage, he’ll have his share of turnovers in the flow of the offense. However, he can still get more judicious with some of his hero ball giveaways.
A lack of balance is a small but meaningful wrinkle to Topić’s turnovers. Too many times, Topić tumbled to the ground on his own accord or skidded off a slip on a dribble move. It wasn’t a problem with his handle per se, but some of the wear and tear on Topić’s knees could be avoided if he could stay upright more often and work on his core strength and balance overall.
Topić’s creation for others is so good that it may cover some of his short-term and long-term offensive woes. Defenses have to respect him as a creation threat for others as soon he crosses halfcourt, which should open up just a bit more space than he’d have as solely a driver of the basketball. It’ll be on his shoulders to improve his outside game enough to bank his passing dividends fully. Still, as a rookie, Topić’s passing and scoring should be enough to start on the right team and garner acclaim for his ability to captain an offense.
Passing/Ball-Handling Package: Without a Doubt
Defensive Divination
So far, the focus of this piece has been on the offensive end, and for good reason. Nikola Topić isn’t the worst perimeter defender in this draft class by a long shot, but there are a handful of issues that could lead to some less-than-stellar moments early in his NBA career.
Let’s start with the positive. As an off-ball defender, Topić uses the same smarts and anticipation that he does on offense to put himself in the right positions. Sometimes, he closes out poorly on shooters, but Topić looks mostly passable when guarding away from the action. He has a solid awareness of off-ball actions, which keeps him from being mercilessly targeted by opposing coaches with screens and cuts.
At Crvena Zvezda, where his offensive role was smaller, Topić was an improved defender with more energy and zeal. He was frosted on denial and showed more willingness to take the bumps and bruises to switch on defense. That’ll be a crucial skill for him to master more at the next level, as Topić will likely be the head of the snake for his next team defensively, whether he’s ready or not.
The lapses he suffers off-ball are glaring, but they’re ultimately fixable. Getting beat back door so often is the easiest way to get the early hook in the NBA, but the slight rule changes between leagues may offer Topić a bit more breathing room on off-ball actions.
Or it could exacerbate his issues. Mega MIS often stationed Topić with a foot or two in the paint in their defensive scheme to try to keep him away from dangerous actions. He won’t have that luxury in the NBA and will instead be left to fend for himself more often than before. The presence of a mobile rim protector can always cover for perimeter lapses, but Topić does run the risk of creating almost as many problems for his defense as he does for his opponents.
That brings us to the roughest part of Nikola Topić’s defense: his on-ball assignments. With a negative wingspan and higher center of gravity, it isn’t too shocking that an 18-year-old Topić was manhandled a bit in a professional league. What was troubling, however, was how much of a sieve Topić was at inopportune times.
It didn’t matter whether they were bigger wings or puny guards; when caught in an iso, Topić was often lunch. His inability to dictate defense with his physicality was concerning, as he could get put onto people’s hips too quickly. Given his quickness on offense, it’s also not ideal to see Topić get blown by when he could slide over a half-step and cut off a drive.
I’m not entirely out on Topić as a defensive prospect for a few reasons. While his wingspan is a real issue, he is tall enough to be more flexible in a role defensively than offensively. Topić has also carried a massive offensive load for most of his career, which can naturally lead to players taking one side of the floor off to rest. At Crvena Zvezda, where he was more of a role player, Topić’s defense did improve to get closer to an average ceiling.
When engaged, Topić does show some solid anticipation on blocks and steals. He’ll likely never be a consistent playmaker in defense nor a player that you can throw into the fire and come out intact, but he has room to grow into a capable on-and-off ball defender in a few years.
A team won’t be drafting Topić to be their stopper. That doesn’t mean, however, that he can expect to make the same impact on teams before due to the points he’ll give up on the other end. Depending on the coach he has in the NBA, Topić could even see a shorter leash than ever before, but the hard lessons he learns about his limitations could help to push him to improve on his weaknesses in the long run.
Perimeter Defense: Don’t Count on It
Interior Defense: My Reply is No
Team Tasseography
Having moved around so much in his short career already, it’s worth taking a wide approach to considering Topić’s past team concepts. He’s been loaned out to various clubs, working his way into becoming a full-time point guard starter, but his most recent steps speak to his limited malleability and best role at the highest level.
Simply put, the best version of Nikola Topić is the one who dominates possessions with the ball in his hands. That bears out in his brilliance as a ball-handler and his team’s successes. Topić’s performance in the FIBA U18 European Championship game, where he had 24 points and eight assists, speaks to the good things that can happen in crunch time when Topić is at the helm.
Similarly, Topić’s time and success at Mega MIS speak to his ability to uplift his teammates. He played alongside Nikola Djurisic and Andrija Jelavic, both talented prospects in their own right, but neither is a capable deep shooter. Topić found ways to get them easy buckets despite their misses from distance while consistently rewarding his big man Uros Plavic for his dirty work on defensive boards with a steady diet of dunks.
Crvena Zvezda's move to recall Topić might have been the most impactful mid-season move for a prospect all season. That stems from the fact that the team didn’t need Topić, nor have a clean fit for him. Topić played next to Milos Teodosic in the backcourt in what will likely be the one time he wasn’t the best passer on the floor. Teodosic is a smaller pure point guard who also throws wicked passes while dominating the ball, which creates a quandary for Tooic’s development.
Without the same possessions where he could dribble the air out of the ball, Topić’s counting stats suffered. It didn’t help that he also suffered multiple injuries with Crvena Zvezda, which prevented him from getting into a rhythm with his new team. Once you peel back the layers on the move itself, it’s unsurprising that Topić couldn’t reach the same lofty highs at Crvena Zvezda that he could at Mega MIS.
One can’t ignore that Topić did look like an improved defender when not playing as a heliocentric creator, but I’m not sure that’s a trade-off worth making. Dulling the sharpest tool on a Swiss Army Knife to sharpen another barely only takes away from what the tool can do. The same goes for Topić. Not letting him stun defenses into a stupor with his drives and dishes to play him as an off-ball guard blunts the effectiveness he can have on a game’s impact.
It’s frightening to hand the keys to a rookie right away, but whether in the NBA or the NFL, it’s what you do when you select a talented offensive player high up in the draft. The NBA team that drafts Topić should do so with full belief in his ability to one day be their offensive engine, even if he has to work out some early kinks. Taking him to play a bit of a role is asking for a flavor of disappointment that Topić wouldn’t deliver if he were placed in an ideal developmental situation.
The Final Shake
This developmental dilemma does leave Nikola Topić in a more delicate situation than, say, Reed Sheppard. While Sheppard may not be the same caliber of offensive engine that Topić is, he is much more flexible of a fit for teams. For as good as Topić is as a primary ball-handler, he needs to be a primary ball-handler to sniff his ceiling.
That limits where exactly he might end up in the 2024 draft, due to which teams jumped up in the rankings. Atlanta already has both Trae Young and Dejounte Murray. Washington is a good fit on paper, but they’ll likely take whichever of Zaccharie Risacher or Alex Sarr doesn’t go to the Hawks. The Rockets just signed Fred VanVleet to a gargantuan deal, while the Hornets already have one guard in their backcourt who is a net negative on defense and needs the ball to be his best self.
Detroit has just one cornerstone in Cade Cunningham, who overlaps too much with Topić. The same goes for Portland, who drafted Scoot Henderson into an already-cluttered backcourt. Unless the Memphis Grizzlies move on from Ja Morant, there isn’t a good argument for Memphis to take a talented guard like Topić just to make him, at best, the 4th guard in a contending rotation.
That leaves a few teams that could take Topić despite his recent injuries. The San Antonio Spurs will constantly be mocked as taking an international player, but the team does have two lottery picks and a need at point guard. There may not be a better culture and basketball fit for Topić to play under Greg Popovich and get to throw his sublime dimes to Victor Wembanyama and company.
There are some exciting spots further down in the lottery, too. The Utah Jazz looked great with Keyonte George running the point, but he’s skilled enough as a scorer to split possessions with Topić. The Chicago Bulls have a major decision with Coby White, but if he walks and Lonzo Ball can’t, the team could be in the market for a point guard.
These musings on Nikola Topić’s eventual destination come with a few cold realities. Few teams can offer him a situation where he thrives as a primary creator. He also suffered a major injury and didn’t measure in the way that many teams wanted. Combined with the draft night's casual chaos, these factors could lead to a consensus top prospect like Topić falling toward the back half or even out of the lottery.
That wouldn’t be the worst thing, though. More than maybe any prospect this year, fit matters for Topić. If a team decides to let him redshirt his rookie year before handing him the keys to the offense, they could be sitting on a late-blooming star. In a draft that’s widely been panned as bad, the cardinal sin of the 2024 class is its lack of clearly identifiable star power.
With his deadly drives, precision passing, shooting, and defensive upside, I’d bet on Nikola Topić grading out as one of the likely three All-Star level players in a vacuum. That vacuum exists due to the narrow band where Topić would reach the peak of his success. It rests upon the shoulders of a forward-thinking general manager to see Topić for who he is and what he can one day be for a team. If it all breaks right, Topić may come out of the 2024 draft with a kaleidoscopic future more dazzling than any other player in the class.