047: Inside the NBA and Team vs Private Sports Rehab ft. Alex Hubelbank

“You are rarely, if ever, running your A plan in pro sports”
Alex Hubelbank

What You will learn

Team environments foster collaboration but often limit ideal treatment plans.
Private practice offers autonomy—but demands creativity and resourcefulness.
Continuity of care is critical for player trust, performance, and health outcomes.
NBA players need to become advocates for their own health and performance.
Future sports medicine success lies in communication and third-party collaboration.

Listen here – Finding Small Wins Podcast:

In this episode of Finding Small Wins, I sit down with Alex Hubelbank, a physical therapist and performance specialist who has navigated the worlds of both team-based and private sports rehab at the highest level. We dive into what it’s like to work inside the NBA, the pros and cons of team versus private care, and why improving communication across organizations could be the next big step in athlete health.

If you’re a young professional in sports rehab or someone who works with elite athletes, this conversation is packed with insight. From managing player care behind the scenes to creating systems that support continuity across team changes, Alex offers real-world lessons you won’t get from a textbook.

About Alex Hubelbank

Alex Hubelbank is a licensed physical therapist with a decade of experience across professional sports, private consulting, and corporate wellness. From Apple to the NBA to private concierge care, Alex has worn many hats—literally and figuratively. Her mantra, “99 by design,” speaks to her winding but purposeful career path that uniquely qualifies her to understand both the human and system sides of elite performance.

Collaborative Team Environments Distribute Pressure

Working within an NBA team environment presents a unique professional culture—where pressure exists, but is often shared. As Alex notes, many decisions are made collectively, reducing the burden on any one practitioner. This aligns with high-functioning models of interprofessional care, where shared decision-making improves patient outcomes and decreases clinician burnout. For example, “The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle highlights how great teams function through trust and distributed responsibility—a dynamic echoed by Alex’s experience on the sidelines.

This environment is also structured. Medical and performance staff often work within clear communication hierarchies and shared protocols. When executed well, this promotes alignment and cohesive action, something we explore deeply in my 3P Model framework: Principles, Process, and Plans.

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Private Practice Offers Depth and Authenticity

When athletes hire private practitioners, the relationship becomes much more than a treatment plan—it’s a window into their real lives. Alex shares how private work allowed her to see players in their most authentic environments: cramped flights, late-night texts, hotel-room training sessions. These intimate settings reveal subtle stressors or lifestyle habits that are often missed in a structured team facility.

This dynamic recalls ideas from Make It Stick by Peter Brown—learning and adaptation are optimized when context is rich and variable. As clinicians, when we operate in these diverse, less-controlled environments, we often uncover what really matters to an athlete’s recovery or performance.

Continuity Is Why Athletes Seek Outside Help

One of the most profound insights Alex shares is the importance of continuity of care. Athletes are mobile. Trades, free agency, and short-term contracts mean that even elite players can bounce between teams and cities multiple times a year. In the face of that volatility, private practitioners can offer one thing teams can’t: consistency.

This mirrors principles behind The Continuum, my return-to-play framework. Players crave reliability in their process. A therapist who knows their body, preferences, and prior injuries becomes a crucial part of their long-term performance strategy. Continuity isn’t a luxury—it’s a competitive edge.

There’s a Need for Standards and Better Communication

Through her work with several NBA athletes, Alex observed significant variation across organizations. Each team has its own philosophy, resources, and expectations. This variability can create confusion and inefficiencies, especially when a player moves from one team to another.

This reflects a growing call in sports medicine for shared decision models and interoperable systems. Whether it’s the need for unified EMRs (Electronic Medical Records) or establishing baselines similar to the NBA Combine, there is an opportunity to professionalize collaboration. Books like Range by David Epstein remind us that diverse inputs can be an asset—but only when structured communication enables them to work together.

The Athlete Must Be the Driver of Their Health

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this episode is the call for athletes to become active participants in their own care. Too often, players either outsource every decision or defer entirely to staff without asking questions. As Alex puts it, “nothing is scarier than when a player is disengaged from their own healthcare.”

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This reinforces the value of education and empowerment. The most effective return-to-play pathways are those where athletes understand the why behind the what. By equipping them with knowledge and involving them in decision-making, we ensure sustainability beyond the gym or training room. Just as my 3P Model emphasizes process over prescriptions, so too must we teach athletes how to think, not just what to do.