Former Lakers Trainer Breaks Down What Possible Treatment Luka Doncic Is Getting in Spain

Luka Doncic flew to Spain with a Grade 2 hamstring strain and a ticking clock. The playoffs are days away, Austin Reaves is also out, and the Los Angeles Lakers are heading into a first-round series against the Houston Rockets without their two best guards.

The All The Smoke podcast shared a clip on Instagram asking former Los Angeles Lakers head athletic trainer Gary Vitti for his perspective on Doncic going overseas for treatment ahead of the playoffs.

Vitti spent 32 years on the Lakers' sideline, won eight championships with the franchise, and worked closely with Kobe Bryant through multiple overseas treatment trips. He was upfront from the start about what he did and did not know.

"Yeah, well I don't know what Luka's doing in Spain. I don't know what they're doing there, so I can only comment on what Kobe was doing and what was being done at the time. So to put it in perspective for you, everybody knows what PRP is, platelet-rich plasma."
Gary Vitti

From there, Vitti broke down how PRP works. Doctors take blood out of the body, spin it in a centrifuge, pull out the platelets, and inject them back into the injury site to trigger healing. It sounded like a breakthrough when the medical world first got behind it, but reality was more complicated.

"We were really, really excited about it. We thought it was going to be sort of this panacea miracle cure and then it wasn't. And it doesn't mean it doesn't help, it doesn't mean it doesn't work, but it certainly wasn't, you know, the end-all that we thought it was going to be."
Gary Vitti

Why NBA Players Travel to Europe for Injury Treatment

Stem cells followed PRP, and the early excitement was similar. But what actually made Kobe's overseas trips different came down to regulation. In the U.S., there are strict rules around how long blood can stay outside the body during these procedures. Europe operates under looser guidelines, which means doctors there can work with more potent serums that simply cannot be made here legally.

"There's rules here that are very stringent on how long can you incubate blood, how long can you, you know, have this outside of your body. Different parts of Europe have different rules, but they're not as stringent as our rules here. So they can create things that we cannot create here legally."
Gary Vitti

That is the real reason players make the trip. It is not just finding a good doctor. It is about accessing a version of treatment that does not exist at home. As for whether any of it actually delivers, Vitti kept it straight.

"Now whether they work or not, let's see, you know, you gotta ask Luka. You know, Kobe felt like it helped him, and that's why, you know, he kept going back."
Gary Vitti

Doncic was expected to return to Los Angeles this week after spending about a week in Spain receiving multiple injection treatments, though the Lakers have not confirmed his arrival. Coach JJ Redick listed both him and Reaves as out indefinitely, with Game 1 against Houston set for April 18.

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