The Thunder announced today that Kevin Durant’s foot fracture has shown signs of “regression” and that he’ll have season-ending surgery next week to help the healing process. This sucks.
Durant was diagnosed with a Jones fracture (a stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal) in October, and though he came back in early December, he was in and out of the lineup until last month, when the Thunder shut him down. He’s had some “setbacks” since then, and now he’ll have a bone-graft procedure—a phrase that summons the ghost of Grant Hill from the operating table—to help stimulate healing, the team hopes.
Durant will resume “basketball activities” in four to six months, but we’re sure you’ll hear that he’s ahead of schedule any day now. Here’s the full statement from the Thunder:
This sucks in 11 different ways and flavors, and obviously everyone wants to see Durant back to being Durant and the Thunder back to whomping on fools, but one peripherally shitty thing is that it changes the subtext of Westbrook ripping spines out of butts every night. We’re no longer watching Russ hold down the fort by jamming up an MVP season, waiting for his partner to get back so they can do some real damage in the playoffs; now it’s just an anchor of bad trades, bad deals, and bad luck around the neck of a whole season (and one MVP-type season) for two of the best players around. Sucks.
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