Nikola Topić, a projected top-10 pick in the NBA Draft, partially tore his ACL, his agent Misko Raznatovic told ESPN on Wednesday.
Topić sustained a left knee injury in January that sidelined him for nearly four months. Upon his return in late April, he played three games before reinjuring his left knee in Game 1 of the Adriatic League playoff finals on May 13.
Topić, who was at the NBA Draft Combine in Treviso, Italy, this week, will travel to the United States and be evaluated by NBA team doctors, who will decide on his surgery and treatment plan, ESPN reported.
“The doctors who checked the stability of the knee confirmed that is in excellent shape,” Raznatovic told ESPN.
The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie projected Topić to go eighth to the San Antonio Spurs in his most recent mock draft. A 6-foot-6 lead guard, the 18-year-old last played for Crvena zvezda in the Adriatic League, a regional league with teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. It was formed in 2001 and is perhaps best known for producing three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić.
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In 13 games, Topić averaged 18.6 points and 6.9 assists while shooting 52.4 percent from the field.
The first round of the NBA Draft is June 26 in New York.
Topić is a dynamic ball-screen distributor and consistently lives in the paint in the Adriatic League, which consists of the top teams from the six countries that once made up Yugoslavia. He can execute nearly every pass in the book once he gets a downhill advantage, and hits teammates with flair and creativity. Topić also scores proficiently at the rim, using inventive touch to finish high off the glass and around rim protectors. — Sam Vecenie, senior basketball writer
(Photo: Emrah Yorulmaz / Anadolu via Getty Images)
