Hornets trainer Nina Hsieh broke barriers. But she wants to be known for much more than that
Somewhere in Southern California, a good baseball pass away from the rippling waves of the Pacific Ocean and its mesmerizing beaches, Gary Vitti gushes.
These lofty praises weren’t about anyone in Vitti’s immediate family or even one of the Hall of Fame players he’s been around. Not Shaquille O’Neal. Not Kobe Bryant. Not Magic Johnson. Not even Gastonia native James Worthy. Instead Vitti, the legendary former head trainer for the Los Angeles Lakers, is recalling the well-traveled path of Nina Hsieh, the Charlotte Hornets’ senior athletic trainer.
He sounds like a proud father, reliving memories that are still vivid to this day.
“You can be the smartest athletic trainer in the world, but one of the big things with an athletic trainer is to be able to gain the trust of the players that you are treating,” Vitti said. “There’s a point there where the athlete knows they are not 100% but also knows they can play because you give them confidence that they can do it.
“And I felt that was something Nina was good at. The players actually trusted her. You could end up with a guy like Kobe where they want to play, but you don’t think they are ready, you can get into a pretty ugly argument with a guy that way.”
Establishing a strong connection with the athletes she treats propelled Hsieh to becoming the NBA’s first female head athletic trainer in 2019 prior to landing with the Hornets. She’s in her second season with Charlotte and has a huge hand in the team’s care, prevention and treatment of injuries, working closely with the staff to ensure players are reaching peak performance health-wise off and on the court.
Fully immersed in a season that has the Hornets ranked fifth in the NBA with 196 games missed due to injury, Hsieh has been busy. Really busy. Yet, she’s still effective and calming, doing whatever she can to get the players right.
“Her attitude, her work ethic is unparalleled to most people you see,” said Joe Sharpe, the Hornets’ director of healthcare and sports performance. “She’s done a great job here and been an asset for us because I kind of know in a sense, she probably thinks like I do from a head athletic trainer standpoint because she’s been in the chair before. So that’s a huge asset for me and less I have to worry about guiding her as far as knowing what to do, because she knows what to do instinctively. It just makes my job a whole lot easier.”
Hsieh is involved in myriad tasks behind the scenes. Like coordinating rehab programs between players, the team’s strength and conditioning coach and sports scientist. Or being dedicated to slinging equipment bags and setting up training tables in the team’s hotel on the road. First to show, last to go is the credo she’s lived by.
She was extremely instrumental in Kelly Oubre’s rehab from Jan. 4 finger surgery after the All-Star break, and the Hornets’ swingman credits Hsieh for his swift return. She also helped soothe Oubre’s mind while he was out, which is an underrated — but not overlooked — aspect of her regimen.
“Overall, one of the most professional workers that I’ve worked with and she’s just super smart,” Oubre said. “She’s kind of like what we aspire to be out here. We just do what we do effortlessly, have great knowledge about the game, and perform each and every day consistently. And that’s what she does in the training room — she performs each and every day consistently.
“She has her knowledge. She knows about the body. Whatever body part could be aching, she’ll know remedies to treat it right and that’s very important. It gives us confidence to go out there and know we are taken care of and our bodies are refreshed and ready to go.”
A career destined due to her own injury
That all stems from the lengthy trek Hsieh navigated just to reach this point, sifting through countless career minefields as a woman in a male-dominated profession. The Taiwan native’s rise through the training ranks is impressive, spearheaded by a grinding mentality initially ingrained in her partially thanks to her two male siblings.
Hsieh feels incredibly fortunate to be in her current role, a position that allows her to work in a line of business she always longed for dating to her scholastic days in Huntington Beach, California.
“I was into sports growing up,” Hsieh said, “played two sports in high school, had a pretty bad injury and spent some time in the athletic training room. Always knew I wanted to do something in sports but also wanted to help people. The two worlds just kind of collided.”
All because of a line drive in softball, which led to a dislocated fracture on the ring finger of her right hand. A wicked screaming shot off an aluminum bat spurned her pursuit of a degree in sports healthcare.
“So that’s how it all began,” Hsieh said.
A 2000 Cal State Fullerton grad, things really picked up steam for Hsieh following a couple of ground-level jobs at a pair of junior colleges in Arizona. In 2004, she landed the athletic trainer’s job for the UC Santa Barbara women’s basketball team and held the role for four years. She also held the same position for the UCSB men’s soccer team in 2010-11.
“It was a perfect opportunity for me to get my foot into a D-I school, be back in California and somewhat close to my family,” Hsieh said. “So, that worked out perfect, and it was a great opportunity to be under another head athletic trainer that you hear (about) through words of great athletic trainers. So, for me it was a no-brainer to go in and start that chapter of my life.”
That’s also where Hsieh encountered a big fork in the road, courtesy of her interactions with Vitti. The Lakers held their youth clinics at UC Santa Barbara, and at that point in his career Vitti wasn’t going to work that camp. He gave the task to Hsieh, and she handled herself more than admirably each year.
Vitti was impressed with Hsieh’s technique, style and knowledge, leading to him quickly considering her when the Lakers were searching for candidates for the head trainer spot with their G League (then called the D League) affiliate, which is now known as the South Bay Lakers.
“I told her that this could be a stepping-stone for you breaking into professional sports,” Vitti said. “I told her this could be it.”
There was a slight catch, though.
“I’m going to tell you what Pat Riley told me in 1984 when he hired me,” Vitti said to Hsieh. “One of the things I like about you is that you haven’t been scared yet by the NBA. So look at where you are at. You are in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara, it’s beautiful, man. You are at a collegiate level, in a really nice place. You’d be here the rest of your career.
“Are you sure you want to make this kind of move, because once you make it, you might not be able to go back to that job in Santa Barbara because somebody else is going to have it, and they are not going to want to let it go.”
Hsieh chuckles when Vitti’s vivid recollections are relayed to her.
“That’s the exact conversation that Gary and I had,” she said, smiling. “I remember it to this day, word for word what he was saying. When Gary called me, it was a really, ‘Think about it. You’re living by the beach, one day you can retire there, it’s beautiful, the weather is gorgeous, Division I. Are you sure you want to go into the minor leagues?’ But it was part of the journey, right?
“So, it was the move that I had to do to get to where I want — going to a place where I was going to be mentored by one of the great athletic trainers all around, but also one of the greats in basketball. Learning from the best, knowing that I was going to get a mentorship. Not only learning and growing as a person but being mentored by one of the greats out there.”
Obviously thrilled, Hsieh’s decision also left Vitti a little dumbfounded. In a good way.
“She was like, ‘No I can do this, I want to be that person,’ which is impressive,” Vitti said. “It’s not like she was going from a bad job. She was going from a great to a tough job. I mean, it was the D League. It wasn’t the big leagues. Riding on buses and sitting on the back of planes and rough travel. They weren’t staying in the Four Seasons like we were.
“So, she jumped ship from Santa Barbara and made the move. And for that alone, I think you have to give her tremendous credit because that’s a tough move. Because you are everything. You are the strength and conditioning coach, you are the traveling secretary, you are doing the laundry, you are folding towels. You are doing everything, OK? And she did it. She did it to the best of her ability with a smile on her face.”
Hsieh spent seven years with the Lakers’ G League affiliate before her next big break. When Vitti retired in 2016, the Lakers elevated his assistant, Marco Nunez, to the head post and hired Hsieh to be the assistant trainer. She held the title for three years until Nunez was let go in 2019, and that’s when Hsieh made the historic leap and shattered the glass ceiling, crashing directly through it.
Those days of working closely together with Vitti during the Lakers’ training camp trips to Hawaii paid huge dividends. Hsieh was in the head chair and loving every second of the lofty ascension.
“For me, you always hope that you get the job because of what you do and how you do things,” Hsieh said. “But then to have that added on top, I mean for me just personally it’s obviously very special. It’s something I hold near and dear to my heart. But it also is a time to mentor or at least show the little girls out there that things can happen and it is reachable.
“No matter how many times you get kicked down or somebody tells you it will never happen, it is something that could happen. And once you get that aura of, ‘Hey, you’re the first female to do this,’ there’s that weight on your shoulders of, ‘We’ve got to make sure that our future understands that whatever you want to do, there is a possibility of it.’ ”
She was at the pinnacle for two years. Caught up in Lakers’ personnel changes in 2019, Hsieh’s contract wasn’t renewed, leaving her out of a job and unsure of her future. She didn’t know what was next.
‘When she became available, I called her right away’
Anxiousness started slowly creeping in until she received an unsolicited phone call from an old Lakers coworker who just so happened to be nearly 3,000 miles away and had a promising position available.
“I knew her, I had no reservations about her ability to do the job,” said Hornets GM and president of basketball operations Mitch Kupchak, who hired Hsieh when he was in Los Angeles. “So when she became available, I called her right away. And it might have been a little quick to call her because you get let go, your mind is racing. But she had to wrap her head around moving from L.A. and California, which is where she was raised, to North Carolina. So, it’s a big move.”
Hsieh had to ponder the potential situation. She needed to process it all and discuss it with her longtime boyfriend, Tommie Rhynes. Once she wrapped up her conversations with Sharpe and Kupchak to get a gauge on where everybody stood, Hsieh was convinced. After spending her pro career with one organization, she figured it was time to branch out.
When summer league wrapped up in 2021, the Hornets got the ball rolling to bring Hsieh on board. Quickly, she integrated herself on Sharpe’s staff along with head associate athletic trainer Quinton Sawyer and became a key gatekeeper of the Hornets’ performance care team.
“It’s been great getting back on my feet, but I’ve been really lucky with head athletic trainers, Joe and Mitch trusting in me and giving me the opportunity,” Hsieh said. “But Joe is one that has also done his years in the NBA and is very well-known within the NBA, so even though I had been in that position for a couple of years, you still grow every day.
“And every day is an opportunity to learn and be better. So, why not go to another head athletic trainer that has been around for so many years, can once again add mentorship to my professional life? Why not? And, it was a good opportunity for me to kind of get back on my feet and get back into the NBA.”
It also represented another chance for Hsieh to continue her trailblazing journey.
“When I started in this business it was dominated by males,” Kupchak said. “Male coaches, male trainers. There were no therapists, sports scientists. It was just dominated by males. And over the years there wasn’t much change up until about 10 years ago you started to see some change, which quite frankly was about time. And when I left L.A., we had three full-time females in the training room.
“So, the NBA has come a long way from a male-dominated sport within the coaches and medical ranks and training ranks to now a sport that is somewhat integrated and diverse. And it works. It’s a very productive environment and I see no problems.
“I don’t see why we just don’t continue to hire the best person regardless of their gender or race. We should just be hiring the best person and keeping an eye on diversity because everybody has got these biases that they don’t know even exist sometimes.”
Hsieh has fought through some of those prejudices to arrive at her current gig, steering through twists and turns. It’s what makes the incredible camaraderie she’s developed with the Hornets’ staff that much sweeter and pushes her to strive for greatness she seeks after being taught intricacies by some noted stalwarts like Vitti.
“Those are dreams that get fulfilled,” Hsieh said. “As you are going and learning and growing into your profession, you think about opportunities like that and you never know if those opportunities are ever going to come. So when those are presented, those are dream opportunities to learn, to grow, to get better, to basically be groomed for what you’ve always dreamed about.
“Having the opportunity of spending summers in Vegas with him with summer league and being able to be a part of the staff during training camp and being able to travel with them and learning the ropes of how to do things and how to do things right, those are opportunities that are priceless. And that’s partly what makes me who I am today. It’s part of that journey.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
