The chances of Kevin Durant making a return to action this season have seemed pretty slim since the team backed him off of basketball activities last week, but Friday's announcement still goes down as a worst-case scenario. Not only is Durant done for the year, but the Jones fracture he initially suffered has regressed to the point where he will require another surgery to repair it.

At this point, you probably weren't counting on Durant for the balance of this season anyway -- in fact, if you had Durant on your roster, there's a very good chance your season ended weeks ago. So, the focus from this latest setback shouldn't necessarily be on what it means for this season, as much as what it might mean for him long term.

Still, before we look at the long-term impact for Durant, we can take a glimpse at the Thunder and what this means for the next 11 games. Since Durant's last game, the Thunder rotation has undergone a major overhaul, with Enes Kanter emerging as the second option on offense and there is no reason to expect that to change.

If you were hesitant to add Anthony Morrow or Dion Waiters, this should probably make you feel better. Waiters is going to get the larger role and more playing time, but Morrow has been the better player, shooting 51.7 percent from the field and knocking in 2.5 3-pointers per game over the last 18 games. If I was looking for a fill-in at guard in a category-based league -- because neither has much appeal in H2H -- Morrow would be my choice.

Looking beyond this season, what does this mean for Durant moving forward? 

Bryan, you almost certainly won't be alone. Durant burned plenty of Fantasy players this season, as he was selected sixth on average in CBSSports.com leagues, including as high as second overall and no lower than 15th. This despite knowing he suffered the injury in mid-October and wouldn't be back for at least the first month of the season.

In H2H leagues, where the finish can be more important than the start of the season, there was a certain amount of sense to drafting him high, but maybe we didn't properly account for the risk.

But then again, maybe we did...

If we take that at face value, there was, at worst, a 1-in-13 chance Durant would suffer this kind of setback. Given that, I'd say he was still worth the risk of a first-round pick. After all, look at who went immediately behind him: Blake Griffin, Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook. Though there would be no way of knowing at the time, both Westbrook and Griffin missed significant amounts of time this season with their own injuries, while Love didn't come close to justifying a first-round cost. 

There's plenty of hindsight bias involved there, because neither Westbrook nor Griffin had a chronic injury sideline them, but that's kind of the point -- injuries happen. Yes, Durant had a greater chance of suffering a long-term issue, but he also had a greater chance of becoming the top Fantasy player when healthy. That kind of upside might have been worth that kind of risk.

And even with this dreadful season in the immediate past, I will probably say the same thing next fall. Durant's current timetable -- featuring a 4-6 month recovery process -- could push right up against the start of training camp, which would make me very nervous to invest in him. We're a half a calendar year away from having to make this decision, but it's still difficult for me to say he should fall out of the first round at this point.

I probably won't take him over LeBron James, Stephen Curry, James Harden or Chris Paul still. Those are the five player who went before Durant on average this season, and nothing we have seen has changed that order. I would probably move Westbrook and DeMarcus Cousins over him as well. Any one of those seven players could conceivably end up the top overall player in either H2H or Rotisserie scoring if a few things break right.

However, none of them can match Durant's sheer upside at this point. Only James in 2012-13 and Westbrook this season has matched Durant's average of 48.9 Fantasy points per game in the last three years, and Westbrook is the only player within three points of that mark this season. And in category-based leagues, Durant is probably the only true nine-category contributor on his level though Harden and Curry have made big strides in that regard.

On the whole, Durant probably still carries more upside than any single player in Fantasy looking ahead to 2015-16. He's a four-time scoring champion who has improved his rebounding, playmaking and defense over the last few seasons and will be just 27 on opening night.

Of course, no other prospective first-round pick carries as much as risk. You'll have to determine how much -- or whether -- the reward outweighs that risk. It will be one of the most fascinating debates in the Fantasy world this summer.