GITG 101 – Get to Know Nick Thomas (former NBA Athletic Trainer)
While as a student athletic trainer at San Diego State University I had the opportunity to work with elite athletes with the football team for spring football and into the season. This exposure prepared me greatly as a student athletic trainer with heat related illnesses, concussion protocols, and high impact injuries. After football, my senior year I was assigned to work with the baseball team led by Aztec and Padres great Tony Gwynn. This team also held the first overall pick in the 2009 MLB draft, Stephen Strasburg. This exposure led to being selected to an internship with the Portland Trail Blazers in July of 2009.
With the Blazers I worked full time as their intern from 2009-2012, with the great Geoff Clark. I was given the opportunity to travel with the team for the 2010-2011 season. Towards the end of the internship, I worked home games only until the end of the 2013-2014 season. This experience gave me confidence to be the head athletic trainer for two high schools (Wilson High School and Jefferson High School) in the Portland area with Providence Health & Services. This was the most rewarding position, as I got to be the main provider for high school athletes within programs that normally would not be able to afford full time athletic trainers for practices and games.
After Providence, I found an opportunity during the pandemic to land with Amazon under their safety division as an Injury Prevention Specialist. Although different from the normal sporting world, Amazon is able to provide a steady schedule and the ability to provide health care to hard working Amazon associates.
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Takeaways:
Experience is key (working at the college level is one of the ways to do this)
A lot of people will work in various sports before landing in the NBA
NBA Internships can lead to careers in the NBA or to other fulfilling avenues
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Nick answers one of your Questions for a Trainer:
Paolo Banchero was losing 7 pounds a game through sweating... as an NBA Athletic Trainer, would this be concerning to you? Would it be a yellow or red flag? How would you help improve his body so that he wouldn't deal with cramping during games?
This would be concerning only if the Athletic Training staff didn’t manage his fluid loss correctly. I don’t see this as a red flag. Ways to combat this is by making sure the athlete hydrates at least 2-3 hours before exercise. When I was with SDSU football, we would monitor the team by having team weigh-ins pre-practice and post practice to measure and evaluate sweat rate. This gave the football team a good log of each player’s amount of body fluid lost each practice and/or game. Players that lost the most fluids got more attention and stricter hydration protocol. Football, of course, is in an outside sporting environment with more equipment worn than basketball.
During a basketball game the key is to have a proper pre-event and current event hydration protocol based off player sweat rate trends. During games pushing water and sports drink to stay adequately hydrated is essential. Other good practices would be to keep the player loose, perhaps with an exercise bike at lite cadence, and foam rolling/stretching to promote mobility. These activities would be key tips to avoid player cramping. These could be set up in the tunnel or by the bench in a private area. Post exercise hydration should aim to correct any fluid loss. Ideally completed within 2 hours, rehydration should contain water to restore hydration status, carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores (muscle fuel), and electrolytes to speed hydration. In the locker room or in the athletic training room would be an ideal time following a game for a player to start the replenish process prior to travel, the next practice, or game.