How Good is Nikola Topic?

Nikola Topic has been building hype after 3 monster Adriatic League games to start the season where he averaged 24.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 4.7 turnovers on a hyper-efficient 68.6% TS.

This is highly impressive for a player who will be one of the youngest in 2024 draft, as he just turned 18 in August in a solid professional league.

EuroLeague is the best non-NBA league, followed by ACB and then the Turkish BSL. After that, Adriatic is in the next tier of pro leagues along with France’s Jeep Elite. It is better than Australia which has become overrated as a prospect hub.

Priors

Last year he posted 21.3 PER in 575 mins in Serbia’s KLS, which is a weaker pro league than the Adriatic. For perspective, Vasilije Micic posted 12.9 PER in KLS while being 7 months older than Topic. Bogdan Bogdanovic had an 18.2 PER in KLS while being 2 full years older than Topic, and a 19.2 PER while being 3 full years older.

Bogdanovic was a bit of a late bloomer, but the difference between ages 17 and 20 is gargantuan. For Topic to be that productive that young is incredibly rare. The only international prospect to be notably more productive at age 17 in recent memory was Luka Doncic.

Even Nikola Jokic only played an unproductive 42 KLS minutes when he was 6 months older than KLS Topic with a meager 3.5 PER. Most of his minutes that year came in the u18 league before breaking out the following season when he was draft eligible.

This past summer Topic led Serbia u18 team to the Euro championship, going 7-0 with all wins by double digits as he averaged 15.3 pts, 3.7 rebs, 5.1 asts, 3.1 tovs, and 2.0 steals, with his best performance coming against Spain in the championship game. He was the clear best player on the clear best team.

At every step he appeared to be a serious prospect entering the season, and now he is getting even more serious with his early Adriatic start. It is dangerous to overreact to 3 game samples, but the prior performances make Topic more likely to be real.

Rim Pressure Extraordinaire

Another danger with 3 game samples is that players often get overrated for hot shooting. But Topic has only shot 4/14 3P during that stretch. His dominance has come mostly inside the arc where he has shot 24/32, with *all* of his makes coming inside the paint.

After reviewing the highlights of his 3 games, we can break down his 2 point buckets into:

—15 self created rim buckets against set D
—2 self created floaters against set D
—2 assisted layups against set D
—5 transition layups

This is being somewhat conservative with calling the defense set, as a couple of the transition scores were arguably against set defenses. Getting to the rim and finishing at this rate is outlier elite penetration. It appears to be a legitimate super power for Topic.

This is a stark contrast to a review of Scoot Henderson film from last season, where in 8 games with available film (which were mostly his better games) he self created 7 rim finishes in the half-court over 267 minutes. Now Topic has more than twice as many (15) such finishes in less than half the total minutes (103). Adriatic league does not have the same athleticism as G-League, but it is overall a solid pro league that is not easier than the G.

Topic vs Scoot

The disparity in rim pressure is startling given that Scoot is much stronger with a much better first step. But Topic is smooth and coordinated, and excels at changing pace off the dribble with elite body control to finish at the rim. Scoot has a great first step, but when he gets to the rim in traffic he often blows a tire and bricks the finish. Even though Scoot seems like a much better athlete, Topic has functioned as the superior athlete when it comes to pressuring the rim and finishing.

When comparing their games otherwise, they are similar. Both are good passing PG’s who are prone to turnovers and play subpar defense. Between the last two seasons including FIBA, Topic has made 32.7% 3P (54/165) and 85.1% FT (189/220) which trumps Scoot’s 27.7% 3P and 76.1% FT in two G-League seasons.

Topic is also 3” taller and is 6 months younger now than Scoot was last year. Along with the rim pressure and shooting signal, he has a handful of interesting advantages. Scoot has the frame and first step, but there’s not much that he can do on better on the court. He’s a slightly better rebounder, and it is possible that he has a better mid-range pull-up game.

It’s not clear how good Topic is on pull-up jumpers because he gets to the rim at will and rarely needs to pull-up, whereas Scoot is highly dependent on them. But Topic is the better finisher off the dribble and better free throw shooter, so it would not be surprising if he is also better on mid-range pull-ups with a much lower reliance on them. And even if he is a bit worse, it hardly matters because he has so much more potential in the high efficiency zones of rim, free throw, and 3s.

There is still much to be learned about Topic between now and the draft, as his season has barely started. But based on what he has shown thus far, he seems like a better prospect than Scoot Henderson. This is in part due to Scoot being overrated, but it also suggests that Topic is a viable choice for the top of the weak 2024 draft.

This may seem like a bold assertion 3 games into the season, but even Scoot’s first G-League season is not particularly better than Topic’s KLS performance last year. Then Scoot regressed his second season while Topic seems to have improved, possibly by a significant margin.

Player Comps

The tempting comparison for Topic is Luka Doncic, as both are big euro guards who have a knack for creating loads of offense via penetration without being elite athletes. But Luka was an insane prospect who posted a huge sample of monster #’s in EuroLeague and ACB, the #1 and #2 non-NBA leagues in the world. Luka was also taller and thicker.

Topic is not in the same tier of prospect as Luka, although it is promising to see that Luka’s penetration seamlessly translated from Europe to the NBA. And frankly, Luka could have turned out even better if he developed better shooting (only 34% 3P 74% FT in ‘22-23 and for his career) or defense.

Stylistically, he is most similar to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as a long and skinny guard with smooth penetration ability. Topic thus far seems a bit better than Shai in terms of pre-draft, as he is 13 months younger now than Shai was an an NCAA freshman. Shai has progressed about as well as possible in the NBA, but again is a favorable sign that smooth but non-explosive penetration translates to higher levels.

Of course being this young with only 3 Adriatic games under his belt, Topic can easily fall well short of such lofty comps. But it’s hard to come up with a compelling hater comp simply because there are such few prospects who are nearly as prolific at getting to the rim, let alone with good PG size to go with excellent passing and shooting potential.

Where Should Topic Rank in 2024?

It’s still early to make any definitive conclusions, but the 2024 draft seems fairly weak.

I had been leaning toward Ron Holland being in a tier of his own at #1 overall, but after Topic’s strong start he seems like a real contender for the top spot. It will take a much larger sample of play before leaning toward one or the other with any confidence.

Other than that, perhaps somebody else surprises their way into the top tier. And it remains to be seen how Topic performs over the entire season. But at this stage, he is one of the two highly interesting prospects on the board.