Kevin Durant out at least a week after more foot surgery

Kevin Durant: MVP ruled out by new foot surgery

The Oklahoma City Thunder will be without Kevin Durant for at least a week after having minor surgery to alleviate foot pain.

Durant was operated on in October for a broken bone in his right foot, and the latest surgery has seen a screw replaced that was causing him irritation.

General manager Sam Presti said the original injury is healing, and Durant playing on it has not affected it.

He said the head of the original screw was rubbing against another bone, causing discomfort. The new screw does not have a head.

Durant has played in just 27 games this season because of the broken foot, a sprained right ankle and a sprained left big toe.

"As we have conveyed, Kevin has experienced increased soreness in his right foot recently and as a result we initiated a process to determine the best way to manage it moving forward," Presti said.

"In order to alleviate that discomfort, it was determined after consultation with Dr. Robert Anderson, and after receiving a second opinion from Dr. Martin O'Malley, that because the fracture itself has continued to heal as anticipated, there was an opportunity to address irritation from the screw, and make an adjustment to a different piece of hardware within the foot to relieve the symptoms of his soreness.

"The fracture itself is healing excellently by all accounts and we continue to feel good about the prognosis moving forward, but in the short term as he continued to have this discomfort, we wanted to determine the best way to alleviate it while still promoting the continued healing of the initial injury."

Before Sunday's game against the Denver Nuggets, the Thunder were 30-25 and in eighth place in the Western Conference, four games behind the San Antonio Spurs and 1½ games ahead of the Phoenix Suns.

They got off to a slow start, when Durant and Russell Westbrook were sidelined, but have been in better form in the last two months and recently added center Enes Kanter and point guard DJ Augustin before the trade deadline.