Kevin Durant out another 1-to-2 weeks
Soobum Im – USA TODAY Sports
Prior to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night, Thunder head coach Scott Brooks announced that injured star Kevin Durant would miss another week or two as he recovers from a procedure done on his surgically repaired foot.
That’s not the greatest news in the world, and things didn’t get any better against the Clippers, as Oklahoma City was blown out at home, 120-108. Russell Westbrook was thoroughly outplayed by Chris Paul, with Paul putting up 33 points and also hounding Westbrook into a career-high 10 turnovers.
Not only did the Thunder lose, but they dropped to ninth in the Western Conference with the loss, a half-game behind the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans have been on a roll of late behind the superb play of Anthony Davis, and things are getting really interesting between those two teams. The two squads are tied in the loss column, but New Orleans has the tiebreaker thanks to a 3-1 season-series victory.
As great as Westbrook has been, the Thunder as a team haven’t exactly been great with Durant on the sidelines. Oklahoma City clearly needs the duo together to reach its potential, but we haven’t seen them together much this season.
Durant has been dealing with injuries right from the start of the season, when he missed the first month of the year following surgery to repair a Jones fracture in his foot. Durant looked mostly like himself when he finally returned, but then he missed six more games at the end of December.
Durant again played well when he came back from that missed stretch, but the guy just hasn’t been able to stay on the court since then. The last game he played was Feb. 19 against the Dallas Mavericks, and after that, he decided to undergo another procedure to help alleviate soreness in his foot.
That procedure wasn’t viewed as anything serious, but Durant will likely have missed a month by the time he finally comes back. I don’t know if anybody anticipated him missing that much time again.
Most people still expect the Thunder to be the team that grabs that final playoff spot in the West. While the Pelicans have been playing well, they’re dealing with a bunch of injuries as well, and there are questions about whether they can keep up against a decently tough schedule down the stretch of the season. Davis is awesome, but he’ll need some help.
Even so, it would be foolish to count Davis and the Pelicans out, so it’s no guarantee Oklahoma City makes it to the postseason. It’s kind of crazy that the Thunder still have 8/1 odds to win the 2015 Â NBA title, per Bovada, but people believe in them when healthy. Now they just have to get healthy.
