Topic's Option Is Gone

The Thunder declined Nikola Topic's option Monday, making the Serbian point guard a free agent next summer. It's a quiet move on its own — Topic has been defined more by injury than by games played since Oklahoma City drafted him — but the timing puts it in context. This franchise is not patching holes right now. It is figuring out what it actually has.

That tracks with everything the last week has looked like. OKC agreed to sign Ochai Agbaji, then pulled back after Holmgren went down. The roster spot stayed open. Now Topic's option is declined rather than exercised as a placeholder. The front office is clearly not interested in committing to bodies just to fill a depth chart that is already missing Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, and Holmgren for the foreseeable future.

What they're left with is a short rotation built around Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and whatever Isaiah Hartenstein and the remaining wings can provide. Jaylin Williams is the nominal starting forward and has not been close to what that role requires. The team knows it. The question of what to do about it is still apparently unanswered, which is probably the honest position to be in right now.

Declining Topic's option does not solve anything. It just keeps a decision from being made prematurely. Given how fast things have moved in the wrong direction this month, that kind of patience is at least coherent.