Durant Has Procedure On Foot, Out At Least A Week
By Randy Renner
Thunder superstar Kevin Durant will miss at least the next week because of the soreness in his right foot and a procedure done to alleviate the pain and discomfort.
Durant has been bothered by increasing pain in his right foot lately after having surgery at the beginning of training camp to repair a Jones fracture.
Thunder general manager Sam Presti released this statement Sunday afternoon.
“As we have conveyed, Kevin has experienced increased soreness in his right foot recently and as a result we initiated a process to determine the best way to manage it moving forward. In order to alleviate that discomfort, it was determined after consultation with Dr. Robert Anderson, and after receiving a second opinion from Dr. Martin O’Malley, that because the fracture itself has continued to heal as anticipated, there was an opportunity to address irritation from the screw, and make an adjustment to a different piece of hardware within the foot to relieve the symptoms of his soreness."
"The fracture itself is healing excellently by all accounts and we contin ue to feel good about the prognosis moving forward, but in the short term as he continued to have this discomfort, we wanted to determine the best way to alleviate it while still promoting the continued healing of the initial injury."
Presti said Durant is expected to be re-evaluated toward the end of the week to determine when he might be able to return to action.
The Thunder host the struggling Denver Nuggets tonight, who have lost eight of the last 10 and are 20-34 on the season. Indiana (22-33) visits on Tuesday. The Pacers are playing better lately having won seven of 10. Then it's an important back-to-back out west in Phoenix (29-27) and currently a game and a half behind OKC for eighth place on Thursday and then at Portland (36-18, first place in the Northwest Division) on Friday.
The schedule eases on Sunday with a visit to the 13-41 Los Angeles Lakers and then the Philadelphia 76ers (12-42) visit OKC on Wednesday.
Durant's continued struggles with the pain and discomfort in his foot have concerned Thunder officials recently and they believe this adjustment with the screw will solve the problem.
Durant has missed more games (28) than he has played (27). Before this season Durant had missed only 16 games in his career.
Head coach Scott Brooks said before tonight's game that he will go with the same starting lineup as last night in Charlotte, with Kyle Singer getting the start in place of Durant and Enes Kanter starting at center for Steven Adams who continues to recover from a broken hand.