The Oklahoma City Thunder announced Friday, March 27 Kevin Durant will miss the rest of the season with the foot injury that has plagued him since preseason.
Thunder general manager Sam Presti released this statement:
As we communicated last week, Kevin was going to use this time to engage in consultation and evaluation regarding the persistent soreness in his right foot at this stage of his rehabilitation. As part of this process, Kevin and Thunder personnel traveled to two additional specialists this past week; Dr. Martin O’Malley in New York City and Dr. James Nunley at Duke University. These in-person consults were designed to further supplement the previous evaluations of Dr. Bob Anderson. Several conference calls and discussions amongst the specialist team concluded that, while the majority of the soreness in Kevin’s foot was related to continued inflammation of the cuboid bone and would subside with rest, the evaluation process also determined that the Jones fracture of the fifth metatarsal, which had shown significant healing previously, was now demonstrating signs of regression.
With the focus of this process being aimed entirely on Kevin’s long term health and stability, it was the consensus of the specialists team, in addition to a collective decision by Kevin, his representation and the Thunder, that to address the setback of the fracture site, a bone graft procedure would be the most proactive andrecommended approach. The bone graft is the standard procedure for the five to eight percent of Jones fracture surgeries that do not initially have success or experience setbacks sometime within the recovery period. While everyone is disappointed that Kevin falls into that group, we are encouraged that the bone graft procedure has historically demonstrated long-term health and stability.
Dr. O’Malley will perform the bone graft surgery early next week in New York. He has extensive bone grafting experience amongst athletes and has been consulting on the case throughout. Kevin will miss the remainder of the 2014-15 season and is expected to return to basketball activities in the next four to six months.”
The Thunder have 10 more games left in the regular season, and currently stand in 8th place in the Western Conference standings.
OKC visits Utah Saturday night at 8:00.
Durant was diagnosed with a fractured bone in his right foot in the preseason and underwent surgery.
He returned after missing the first 17 games of the season, playing nine games before being sidelined with a sprained ankle for six games.
Durant returned on New Year’s Eve and played most of the month of January before soreness his foot sidelined him again, missing four of five games.
He returned to play six straight games, before being sidelined for good.
It was diagnosed the screw helping to heal the fracture was creating the soreness and Durant underwent a procedure to place a new screw in his foot on February 23.
Durant was hoping to return 1-2 weeks later, but the foot never did recover and eventually led to the announcement by the Thunder Durant will miss the rest of the season.
Durant has missed the last 18 games, and has only played in 27 of the Thunder’s 72 games this season.
