I'm leaning this way too. Topic is 6'6" at 18, and could easily grow another inch, so in theory at least he could easily share a back court with another PG without that back court compromising on overall size.
Even if he's legit 6'8, he won't be a good pick unless he makes massive improvements to every area of his game other than passing and running PNR.
Most posters in here are against Trae or similar heliocentric players (rightfully so), but Topic is useless without the ball and a horrible defender.
If Topic falls to 8, that’s a steal IMO
I think you're neglecting his sky high 2pt%/ability to get to rim, which was one of his best talents on his Serbian Mega MIS team. Granted, it's a small sample size, but if you add in the U18 ANGT games where he tied the all time scoring record of 49 points, I think it points to more than a good passer/PnR guy.
People say that Topic would make Wemby life harder I have to disagree I think with his ball handling and IQ he could feed Wemby all day. He has the ability to manipulate defenses and then create an easy scoring opportunity for Wemby, and if they overload on Wemby he can easily take it to the rim and score. Yes, he has to work on his shooting but he is almost 90% on FT% so I would bet that he can up his 3 ball..
I found this video on Topic helpful. I think some of the takes in here about him are, at best, stale.
https://youtu.be/KoQwWB583NM?feature=shared
Agree. Considering he is 18 mitigates some of these injury concerns, he looks like a solid prospect with a high ceiling that has a great chance at falling to 8. Using the no. 4 on Dalton Knect if Risacher is off the board to me makes the most sense for fit and improving as quickly as possible.
I hate Topic at 4 but he's a good enough passer with good enough speed to take a HR swing for at 8. Would much rather have Castle at 4 if the team is absolutely dead set on drafting a PG with size.
He's not going to get to the rim in the NBA if he doesn't develop at least an in-between game. Could just guard him like he's Ben Simmons until then.
This is a major problem with evaluating Topic. This video hasn't a single clip of Nicola Topic playing. Not a single second. Any clips we have available are fairly old and mostly just him doing the same things over and over -- getting into the rim and getting shots under the rim and around earthbound defenders. Occasionally we have some passes.
That's it. Not to say he can't do anything else, but there's nothing to go on. Sarr and Risacher, the other big foreign prospects, have extensive clips packages, even ones that show misses and bad plays.
Topic? Nothing. He played well, then got hurt forever, then played for a game, then got hurt again. Just don't know what to do with him.
May be reductive, but I keep going back to two things:
1. I either want shooting or defense from my PG-type. Obviously both would be great. With Topic, I get neither.
2. What does Topic do that Tre Jones doesn't already do? He's a good bit taller, of course, but is that height used very much? Tre Jones gets into the lane, he moves the ball, he hits well from the free throw line, he doesn't have much of an outside shot. Is Nicola Topic that much more of a prospect - and improvement over Tre Jones - that you'd sweep aside the other prospects?
I just don't think so at this point.
From the tape I saw, what stood out the most was the fluidity of his handle and penetration. It really is mesmerizing for his height. Can’t think of a player that looked that direct and fluid at that height. There is a reason he has been highly touted before all this unfortunate injury concerns. I can see the Spurs playing off his skill set very well.
With a 90% ft accuracy, he should be a mid range assassin at the very least.
Don’t confuse a team that runs a traditional PG offense with that PG not being able to play off the ball. ALL European players can play without the ball.
Bruno posted this back when.
Gives me pause when so much of his production is coming from the paint. Put together with the clips, where he's blowing by guys who look like Rony Seikaly's much shorter brothers who smoke too much, it's worrisome. Almost all his production seems to come from killing these slow-as-molasses guys who are somehow isolated on him. Then there are no shot blockers. He has a fantastic ft% but doesn't actually draw that many fouls -- 3.2 FTAs per game, which is... ehhh, only so-so for a guy who drives that much?
I have found one scouting report that has managed to get some of his passes together:
Derek Parker is one of my favorite YT commentators. I do think he's grading up a little high on the passing/playmaking and overall feel sections, but he does that sometimes. These do have some really nice looks and finds sprinkled among more bread-and-butter pick and roll stuff that doesn't seem outwardly better than you'd get from the other PG prospects - namely the Kentucky ones, not Castle. None of these, frankly, are different from what I've seen Dillingham do.
More to the point, it appears that he needs to have the ball in his hands to get things going. And then needs to get downhill. There's not a lot of variation here. Isn't this a Josh Giddey, and we've seen the problems with Josh Giddey? And Giddey has more of a mid-range, pacey, variable attack. It's hard not to see a lot of Topic's passes coming from slow defenses that can't cover the basket on rolls in any way.
Topic plays like a WNBA player. Pass
Below the rim layups
Last edited by rascal; 06-02-2024 at 07:33 AM.
Don't really see him as a clean fit, but if this guy falls to UTA at 10 where he is projected to go, he could easily be a first team all rookie.
he shoots over 85% FT and isn't afraid of contact. so there's some reason to be optimistic
On the other hand he hasn't developed an in-between game yet
He’s eighteen, so not much development yet, and he gets to the rim at will, so why put up a middie?
In Serbia, Topic got to the rim at will and shot over 65% there two seasons in a row, at ages 17 and 18, dominating the compe ion.
Spurstalk: Yeah, but where's his DeRozan midrange game?
In 70 games and 2624 minutes this season, Luka Doncic had 2 dunks.
https://www.basketball-reference.com...doncilu01.html
I'm not sure why this cannot be a criticism.
Because he ain't gonna get to the rim easily in the NBA when everyone can back off him like he was Ben Simmons.
You're right, it certainly can be. But when people seem to go out of the way to ignore his ability to consistently get into the paint at a high rate, and to score at an absurdly high percentage only to point out something like the absence of midrange attempts, I feel like it's a case of looking for flaws over objective analysis. There's probably a pretty good chance that his coaching staff encourages getting to the rim over midrange shots, as it has obviously been a successful strategy the past two seasons.
Didn't work too well once he got to Euroleague and the level of compe ion improved.
It's a 2 game sample size on a sore knee, so I'm not giving that too much weight. But sure, nothing's guaranteed.
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