Season 02, Episode 06: Conditioned for Success With Casey Smith
Our podcast, Optimized, is our opportunity to bring you news from the frontline of elite sports performance, where biomarkers and analytics meets the possibilities of A.I. and machine learning. It’s also our chance to bring you the latest on what Orreco is up to.
In this episode of Orreco’s ‘Optimized’ podcast, Marc Cleary is joined by Casey Smith, Director of Player Health and Performance for the Dallas Mavericks.
The conversation begins with a discussion on the feeling of optimism after a successful season and a playoff run, with a 4th place finish in the NBA standings. The two touch on Casey’s professional path to the NBA, leading to a position with the Mavs over the last 18 seasons, becoming the Director of Player Health and Performance in 2019.
Casey outlines the impact and importance of player health in today’s game and the current player empowerment era, with players having greater control of movements, contracts and health.
Marc and Casey then discuss some areas in which improvement to player health support could be gained. There is a difficulty in taking command in the flow of information in today’s technological environment and athletes are inundated with new and innovative means of targeting aspects of performance. However, vetting and analysing the benefit of these technologies is important and challenging.
Later, Casey discusses the use of biomarker monitoring to support the Mavericks programming and recovery. They touch upon the schedule demands in the NBA and how biomarkers provide insights around heavy travel pinch points throughout the season, nutrition and overload.
Casey provides insight into the actions taken around biomarker testing, aligning this with other markers of load and recovery, and how developing trust with the athletes will help you approach them with potential new tech that can support their careers.
Finally Casey gives his opinion on the future of the NBA game, and how sport science is producing exciting new technology to support the health of professional athletes.
Enjoy the episode!
To discover more about Orreco and our cutting-edge work at the frontline of elite sports performance, listen to ‘Optimized', you can listen to it on our podcast page or you can download it from wherever you get your podcasts.
