Kevin Durant out at least 1 week after foot surgery

Injuries continue to haunt the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Kevin Durant underwent a procedure Sunday to reduce pain in his foot, reports Royce Young of ESPN, and Durant will be re-evaluated after a week. 

Durant has been repeatedly hampered by a broken foot that's seemingly refused to heal. The injury originally cost Durant 17 games to begin the season, but has flared up now and again in a frustrating campaign for the league's reigning MVP.

The soreness Durant had been experiencing was due to the screw that had been inserted to repair his initial Jones fracture. That screw was rubbing up against another bone, and Sunday's procedure was to transition to a new screw, one that will hopefully cause less discomfort.

Thunder general manager Sam Presti made a statement downplaying any bigger-picture concerns about Durant's status for the season and saying that he was healing excellently but not perfectly:

A lot of times in these circumstances, part of the recovery process is to have some soreness in or around the cuboid. That's not unusual. The issue that we started to contemplate was, it wasn't resolving at standardly as some of the other situations that we had been apprised of. The increased soreness is what led us to look into these other alternatives. Some pain in or around that cuboid bone is not unusual. It's actually somewhat expected during the recovery process. But in Kevin's case, it wasn't scaling down the level we had anticipated or the level the physicians had anticipated.

The week-long All-Star Break was not used as a time to have the procedure, as rest and recovery was the first recommended alternative to alleviate the soreness. The break may have actually saved the Thunder a few games without Durant, in that case.

When he has played, Durant has been nothing short of phenomenal. He's averaging 25.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists in 33.8 minutes per game, while logging an impressive 27.8 PER.

Thankfully, the Thunder have managed to rise from the basement of the Western Conference to capture a game-and-a-half lead for the eighth playoff spot. Having secured three reliable role players at the trade deadline, the Thunder have a measure of depth that could help withstand the blow of losing Durant.

However, it's probably best for the Thunder to keep Durant's long-term health in mind. Foot injuries are notoriously hard to shake, and they'll need Durant to be at full strength if they want to make waves in the postseason.

In the meantime, the Thunder will continue to lean on Russell Westbrook to lead the team. That's not such a bad proposition, given Westbrook's insane production over the past month.