Meet the Doctors Caring for LeBron James and Your Grandma

What does a recreational pickleball player have in common with the U.S. Olympic basketball team? Both seek care at UCLA Health.

The Los Angeles-based health system is an esteemed sports medicine hub. In Newsweek's recent ranking of America's Best Orthopedic Hospitals, UCLA was the only enterprise to have two hospitals represented in the top 10.

Recently, UCLA Health became the official team physicians of USA Basketball, the national governing body for the sport. Under the multiyear partnership, UCLA doctors are providing orthopedic and sports medical care for the men's and women's teams—including at this year's Paris Olympics and the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

Dr. Nicholas Bernthal had just returned from Paris when he took Newsweek's call on August 1. As chair and executive medical director of the orthopedic surgery department at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, Bernthal oversees the sports medicine institute and is key to the partnership with USA Basketball.

The relationship has been in the works for about two years, according to Bernthal. UCLA is a seasoned provider for elite athletes; historically, the system's doctors have cared for the Los Angeles Lakers, Dodgers, Sparks and Chargers.

But this partnership with USA Basketball is rather unique, Bernthal said. It's typical for one or two physicians to care for a sports team. Now—atypically—the entire UCLA enterprise is standing behind the national basketball teams. Athletes have access to a full roster of care providers, including dentists, ophthalmologists, psychiatrists, physical therapists and performance scientists.

"We've evolved to recognize that sports medicine is this sort of microcosm of medicine in general," Bernthal said. "The more multidisciplinary we can be, the more breadth of expertise we can bring, the better kind of performance outcomes these teams can have."

Five UCLA physicians were still in France as of August 1, splitting their energy between Paris and Lille (a city approximately 140 miles north of Paris, where some Olympic Games are being held). The gig requires immense flexibility. Docs have been with the athletes from training camp in Las Vegas to showcase games in London and Abu Dhabi: It's a "mobile medical operation" on an "onerous" travel schedule, according to Bernthal.

Per the agreement, two UCLA doctors attend each game and practice and can tap on the system's resources if they need them. They must be prepared for anything when traveling internationally. Beyond broken ankles and sprained wrists, basketball players can contract illnesses like COVID-19 or the flu. They might try a new international dish and have an allergic reaction. In some cases, medical emergencies, like cardiac events, require evacuation to a local hospital.

UCLA's international department has contacts at hospitals around the world and can help eliminate guesswork from foreign situations.

"I think USA Basketball really did its diligence to say, 'What do we need to keep these folks safe from the plethora of challenges that could come up when you're crossing continents and you're on such a tight timeline?'" Bernthal said. "The breadth of having a world-class health system behind you makes it so it doesn't feel like we have individual team doctors—rather, we have a medical team behind these players."

Like the athletes, the doctors have their work cut out for them, according to Bernthal. NBA teams play an 82-game season, taking the court every other night for up to eight months. Summertime is their built-in break, but Olympic players miss that chance to let their bodies recuperate.

"These players asking themselves to go into a highly intense competition during that downtime pose a real sort of medical challenge," Bernthal said. "We need them to feel that they can go out and perform during this period that's supposed to be their rest-recuperation period, and still have them feeling their best."

The stakes are high, and to work on an international stage—where the outcomes affect thousands of lives (and wallets)—doctors must fine-tune their focus. But the situation isn't all that unique, according to Bernthal, an orthopedic oncologist by trade. Regardless of location, pressure comes with physicians' territory.

"You can be in an arena, you can be on the floor of a court, you can be on the field, whatever it is," Bernthal said, "but at the end of the day you have to have that medical myopia to be able to narrow your field of view to [identify] the medical problem and take care of it for the patient—blocking out the noise and the pressures of how big the event is."

"At the end of the day, the dedication is to the individual patient," he continued. "It's to get them better and to get them to their goals. That's no different whether it's in the clinic in L.A. or it's in a stadium in Paris."

That idea is baked into the philosophy at UCLA Health, Bernthal said. None of the system's doctors exclusively treat professional athletes. The physicians tasked with caring for LeBron James and Kevin Durant have another roster of patients—one composed of weekend-warrior pickleball players and 80-year-old dog walkers.

Your average Joes will receive the same level of care as your Jayson Tatums, Bernthal attests. In fact, some of the advancements made in professional sports medicine have grown to benefit all patients. The idea to use platelet-rich plasma to promote recovery originated in elite athletics, and is now applied more broadly to encourage recovery from surgeries.

As a former basketball player for Princeton University, Bernthal has gleaned some observations from both court and clinic. In his experience, athletes and spectators have "pretty similar" expectations of their medical providers.

"What people want is to get back to their activities without their health being on their mind," Bernthal said. "Our view is that our responsibility is to kind of address the athlete in everyone."