Debrief: Obi Toppin thinks a between the legs dunk is easy. Long-term injuries? Those are hard.

INDIANAPOLIS – Pro athletes are confident beyond measure. They almost have to be to reach the top. Yet few sentences of self-assurance were as outlandish as the one said by Obi Toppin during his exit interview back in April.

Just before taking the podium, the Pacers played the Pistons. Toppin had a solid outing, and just after the buzzer of the third quarter he threw down a between-the-legs dunk in transition. It didn't count, but it was wildly impressive – and something few players can do as easily as Toppin.

Yet when asked postgame about the play and what it meant to feel some of his otherworldly athleticism, the Dayton product downplayed the slam and equated it to a run-of-the-mill sequence. "A between the legs dunk is easy," Toppin said. He was dead serious. "It felt great to do it, though."

In one question and one answer, Obi Toppin's 2025-26 was explained perfectly. He was asked about the dunk by Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star because after returning from injury, Toppin was still unsure of his bounce. It wasn't that he didn't think he'd regain his athleticism – his teammates told him that he already had. It was more so that he needed to feel it again. On that dunk, one that didn't count, he flew, even after a lengthy recovery from a stress fracture in his right foot.

Toppin answered in that manner because he's a freakish, top percentile athlete. That style of dunk is truly easy for him, though it did feel good given the specific context of his season. Two games prior, during a win over the Brooklyn Nets in which Toppin dominated, he flew in for a stylish alley-oop slam off of a lob from Jarace Walker.

Post injury, it was noteworthy that Toppin had these moments of athletic pop. Perhaps more noteworthy was that he was playing at all. In the aforementioned Pacers vs Nets game, Toppin was the only player who suited up in the 2025 NBA Finals that logged any minutes. Ditto for Pacers-Pistons.

He led the team in scoring in both outings and was the last veteran standing. Others were hurt, and development became a focus late in the season. Yet for Toppin, the end of 2025-26 was important. He needed to see how he felt.

"You really don’t know coming back from injuries, putting a screw in your foot, and then playing that same year," he told me late in the season. "You don’t know how that’s going to feel. So getting out there that first time, it was more just see how it feels, see if I can play through it and stuff."

That's why he wanted to return so badly. The 28-year old had no interest in missing the rest of 2025-26, then coming back next season only to still wonder how he would feel in game. Now, he can spend the offseason at peace with his recovery and health.

Having a window to return in-season didn't make his absence easy. Sitting out is hard for everyone. "I want to be out there as much as I can. I never want to sit any games out," Toppin told me. He loves to play in any circumstance.

His end-of-season stretch proved that more than anything. Toppin was active for 21 of the Pacers final 23 games, only missing two back-to-backs. His minutes load was low at first, then reached roughly normal levels by the end of the campaign.

He played well in that stretch, a meaningful close after a very poor start to the season. Toppin shot 41.7% from the field, including 3/17 from long range, pre-injury. He actually started the season 3/26 from deep. Yet by the end of the year, he sat at 35.6% from three-point range.

That's because of his productive final month. From March 13 to April 12, Toppin averaged 13.8 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. He shot 55.5% from the field and 43.2% from deep despite playing with few of his best teammates. Not that he needed to prove it – and Toppin does fit into the Pacers system well – but the veteran forward showed again that his success is the product of talent and improvement more so than fit within Indiana's style.

That post-return run of play should also provide confidence that next season, Toppin will still be a weapon. He has closed games for the Pacers at times across the last two years for a reason. He's versatile, effective, and able to put his imprint on games with varying contexts. Even in a 19-win season, he demonstrated that.

To do so, he had to rehab his foot for months. It wasn't fun in the slightest. "It was a challenge," he said at his end-of-season exit interview. He still put it on himself to grind every day and return, then run through the tape at the end of the season. "It was super important," Toppin said of the final portion of his campaign, in which he was back on the hardwood. "I didn't play most of the season. So just to have that opportunity to come back and play the 10 to 15 games I played to finish the season, I felt like it was really good for me."

Toppin averaged 11.6 points and 4.4 rebounds per game this season, both career high numbers. Importantly for the Pacers, he can still jump absurdly high and make outside shots. That's all they need to know heading into 2026-27, a year in which winning, not stats, will be the important measure.

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