Thunder to Begin Season without Durant

The Oklahoma City Thunder believe they can be NBA champions this year, but they’ll have to start the journey without their best player.

Kevin Durant, the NBA scoring champion and last year’s league MVP, will be sidelined for at least six to eight weeks with a stress fracture in his foot. While surgery is not necessarily required to heal the injury, most reports say that the star forward will have a procedure done after consulting with a surgeon in the coming days.

Neither Durant nor the Thunder training staff can point to a specific instance which caused the injury, but the nature of the fracture points to general wear and tear as the main culprit in what the Thunder star originally characterized as an “aching” in his foot. Durant has played the most minutes in the league since 2007.

While Durant is out, the bulk of the scoring burden will be placed on point guard Russell Westbrook. Westbrook, who missed 36 games himself last year due to knee injuries, is a three-time All-Star and All-NBA performer, with career averages of twenty points and seven assists.