Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook will be running everything for two months, as the Kevin Durant foot surgery was successful in repairing a fractured bone. Durant will miss the next six to eight weeks recovering, putting Westbrook in charge of the offense as well as the locker room.
The All-Star forward had his foot surgery at a clinic in Charlotte after the team and Durant agreed that surgery was the best course of action.
Durant won’t meet with doctors for an official follow-up for six weeks, which frankly makes even the latter end of “six to eight weeks” seem optimistic.
Doctors performed the Kevin Durant foot surgery to repair a broken bone at the base of KD’s small toe. It was unclear whether Durant injured his foot in a Thunder preseason game or in practice. Or whether it was related to a specific incident at all.
The injury was a specific type of stress fracture commonly called a Jones fracture. Stress fractures often occur with little to no outside “help,” just plain old forces of nature working against bones.
Durant this summer removed himself from the FIBA World Cup tournament, which Team USA eventually won. It was highly unusual for a fierce competitor like Durant to excuse himself from a basketball tournament. At the time it was chalked up to mental fatigue after doing such heavy lifting his MVP season.
Perhaps he knew his body was tired too. If so, his moment of clairvoyance may have simply delayed the inevitable, though it certainly allowed Durant to suffer the injury quietly and pursue surgery in just as private a manner.
Had Durant suffered the injury during the World Cup, Team USA would have had some serious explaining to do with two All-Stars going down with injury. The Indiana Pacers’ Paul George suffered a catastrophic broken leg during an intra-squad scrimmage in Las Vegas. George’s injury will force him to miss the entire NBA regular season.