The Los Angeles Lakers announced that they have hired Dr. Vanessa Brooks as their head athletic trainer.
Dr. Brooks spent the past five seasons as physical therapist and athletic trainer for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
There was an opening for the position in the Lakers organization because Roger Sancho left to take a job with the Phoenix Suns.
Dr. Brooks’ resume before joining the Thunder and NBA includes an undergrad degree from Georgia and a doctorate degree from Emory University in Atlanta. She also previously did sports medicine work at Duke, which is of course the same school that new Lakers head coach JJ Redick attended.
The hiring of Dr. Brooks completes an offseason in which the Lakers completely revamped their staff. After hiring Redick, he brought on a coaching staff that includes Nate McMillan, Scott Brooks, Bob Beyer, Greg St. Jean, Lindsay Harding, Beau Levesque and Michael Wrexler.
Additionally, the Lakers recently hired Zach Guthrie to be their G League head coach of the South Bay Lakers and Ty Abbott as the director of player development.
Dr. Leroy Sims was brought in to be the director of player performance & health so will likely work hand in hand with Dr. Brooks. The Lakers have struggled to keep players healthy in recent years, so the hope is that Sims and Brooks will be able to remedy that moving forward.
Rob Pelinka reveals Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt underwent surgery on both feet
One of Dr. Brooks’ first tasks will be getting Lakers wing Jarred Vanderbilt back on the court as soon as possible as general manager Rob Pelinka recently revealed that he underwent surgery on both feet this offseason and won’t be ready for the start of training camp.
“This offseason he did have two procedures, one on each of his feet. The procedures were highly successful and he’s on a return-to-play program that so far has been lock-step and very promising, led by our new director of performance, Dr. Leroy Sims, and his team,” Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka revealed on Wednesday.
“They’ve been doing a great job and we have a lot of optimism that when the real games start, he’ll be available. Between now and then, there’s still about a month and a lot of ramp-up steps that need to go well. So hopefully there won’t be setbacks. But so far, very promising and we’re grateful he has the issues in his feet behind him.
“It’s now just a matter of getting fully ramped up and ready to be cleared.”
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