"Typically it’s about three to six months for a recovery.":Medical experts advise caution to Damian Lillard from making quick return
Both the Milwaukee Bucks and outside medical doctors conveyed optimism that Bucks star Damian Lillard will recover just fine from a blood clot in his right calf.
However, can Lillard return at any point during the 2025 NBA playoffs? That may be a different story. The Bucks rank in sixth place in the Eastern Conference standings with eight regular-season games remaining. The NBA Play-In tournament takes place from April 15 to April 18 before the playoffs begin on the 19th
Though the three outside medical doctors spoke to Sportskeeda have not worked with Lillard or the Bucks, they have have plenty of perspective on blood clots, the usual recovery period and more.
The roundtable included:
Dr. Hugh Gelabert, professor of vascular surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Isabella Kuo, associate clinical professor of vascular surgery board-certified vascular surgeon, UCI Health
Alexander Weber, MD, orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist with Keck Medicine of USC.
Editor’s note: The following one-on-one conversations have been edited and condensed. Their interviews with Sportskeeda were also conducted separately.
What was your reaction to the news about Damian’s bloodclot?
Gelabert: “I was surprised. It’s been happening the last couple of years. A number of people have gotten bloodclots. Ever since Chris Bosh’s situation, everyone has been tuned into it. It seems similar to what happened to Ausar Thompson with the Detroit Pistons. With having a blood clot in your leg, at the very least, [Damian] will need to be on blood thinners for about three months. Then they’ll reassess it and see how it’s doing. That doesn’t mean he’ll have to be off the leg or anything like that. But he can’t play while he is on blood thinners.
Basketball is a physical sport. If he gets hit or takes a fall, that could bleed internally and that would be really bad.
The usual treatment for a blood clot is usually three months. Sometimes, it’s six depending on the situation. If he has a blood clot that goes to his lungs, that’s at least six months or even lifetime. It’s a matter of how extensive the blood clot is. Sometimes, they are relatively small. His is in the calf. But if it was above the calf or above the knee, then that’s more extensive and more dangerous to clean up. The more clots that you have involving more veins, it takes longer for the body to clear up. But the blood thinners stop the clot from growing. The body then has an ability to dissolve the clot. The longer the clot, the longer it takes to dissolve sometimes. But usually three months is the point when they’ll say, ‘Okay let’s look and see where it’s at.’ If it wasn’t that big of a clot, he'll get right back to it. But if it was a very big clot, it may cause him to have some residual pain in the leg.
Kuo: “From reading the articles, it sounded like he had calf pain that didn’t really get better. When people are diagnosed with blood clots, it is a little bit shocking because most of the time if they’re healthy and otherwise active, it seems a little unusual that can happen. But we’ve definitely seen this happen in a wide variety of patients at different functional levels. There are potential underlying patient factors that can cause clots to happen. There could be an injury that happens to the vessel wall. Some patients may have a genetic factor that leads them to be more prone toward developing clots. Sometimes some patients may not be very mobile. That can also lead to stasis where the blood doesn’t move very much. There are different factors that leads to clotting.”
Weber: “It’s unfortunate for him, his team and the fans. As travel schedules go in the NBA, I think you may be seeing an uptick in stuff like bloodclots. The frequent travel is a risk for developing bloodclots. That, coupled with genetic predisposition and dehydration, are all known risks for bloodclots. In general, all the travel is a lot on the players. Dehydration plus travel can lead to bloodclots. Teams already do this, but I think they’ll take a lot of care to protect the athletes. That should include rehab, recovery and how they’re traveling. Are they using compression stockings and recovery devices in flight and are they staying well hydrated, sleeping well and eating well? All of those things matter. That’s become a point of emphasis for a lot of professional organizations. This is a good example of why.”
What’s the usual recovery entail?
Gelabert: “It’s usually about three months. In that period in the first couple weeks, they probably will keep [Lillard] from being too active. If they recheck it and it looks stable, they may let him do some training in his upper extremities and then lower extremities just to keep him in shape. After three months, if it’s all gone, then he hasn’t lost too much conditioning.”
Kuo: “It depends on the symptom of the patient. If the patient doesn’t have much pain, they may not need much time for recovery. But they probably would still start on blood thinners for protection. For most patients, it would be a three to six month course from blood thinner. When people have pain, that may or may not extend their course of recovery because they’re also dealing with the symptoms. But the typical management with blood thinners is more often used when patients are having more pain. They may need to be worked up and may need testing to figure out why they have this to look for underlying causes.”
Weber: “Typically, patients are put on blood thinners so the clot doesn’t get bigger and potentially grow. It allows the body to absorb and break down the existing clot. Typically it’s about three to six months for a recovery.”
Given the usual recovery of blood clot injuries in your calf, would it surprise you if he came back this season?
Gelabert: “Yeah. I ‘ve seen some instances where some athletes have played on blood thinners. I’ve seen it happen in volleyball, but not in basketball where you can get hit. So I’d be surprised if they let him come back. The usual standard treatment for a blood clot in a leg is three months. There are small things in a calf that can give you a blood clot. If it's a really, really small thing, they may say, ‘We’ll watch it. If it goes away, we won’t have to keep you on the blood thinners that long.’ So that’s a possibility. But the standard treatment is three months.”
Kuo: “It depends on his symptoms and how he does with his treatment. I will say there are some patients that I personally will get interval ultrasounds to see how they’re doing. Depending on how their symptoms are, they may be able to return to activity sooner. So it does depend on the person, their symptoms and how extensive the clot is.
I recommend that patients wear compression hose or compression socks. Generally, that will provide some support in the lower extremity. That usually is not something where I’d want patients to be bedbound. That may lead them to be more prone to further clots, not being mobile or other issues. But that depends on each individual’s activity level beforehand and how extensive the clot is.”
Weber: “I think that recovery timetable would be post playoffs. They start in the playoffs in a few weeks. It would be tough for him to get back in the playoffs this year, but not impossible. I don’t think anyone would rush an athlete back to play that has a blood clot. But you can use ultrasound to evaluate the size of the bloodclot and its existence. If the clot is gone, he’s feeling well and not having pain, I think potentially returning in three months is reasonable. Typically, patients are put on blood thinners for about three months.”
With Victor Wembanyama having a blood clot in his shoulders, how do you compare severity/treatment for blood clots in the shoulder and blood clots in the calf?
Gelabert: “The shoulder ones are much less common. For the upper extremity ones, typically if you find them early and treat them appropriately to dissolve them, they’ll have relatively little impact longterm. You can get back to competition. That was the story with Brandon Ingram. He had that, and then did well after it. The leg clots are different. Depending on the size of the clot, there is a lot more variety. If there are small clots in the calf, then it’s probably not a big deal. If it’s a larger clot going up the leg, that may have a chance of coming back and be a problem.”
Kuo: “When we talk about athletes and shoulder bloodclots to keep it broad, a lot of times there can be other factors. There can be anatomic reasons why someone gets a bloodclot in the shoulder. There can also be what we call ‘venus thoracic outlet,’ which is another disease that can occur in the upper extremities and that doesn’t happen in the legs. So it’s very hard to compare. As for the reasons why people get clots generally, it's all the other factors with having an injury in a vein. But the upper extremity is different from the lower.”
Weber: “It’s a very different situation. The news said that Victor just had surgery. No one knows the details of the surgery. But with reading between the lines, it’s possible that he had something called ‘thoracic outlet-syndrome,’ which could have predisposed him toward developing the bloodclot. Athletes that have over-the-head activity are more inclined to develop that. That can lead to clots in that area. It’s most commonly seen in pitchers. It’s unclear whether Victor has surgery to remove the clot or whether he had surgery because of ‘thoracic outlet-syndrome.’
Obviously, I don’t work with him, so I don’t know the details. But that situation is much different than Damian Lillard’s since most likely there was an underlying cause for that blood clot to develop. Therefore, Victor had surgery potentially to address the underlying condition so that it doesn’t reoccur.”
The Bucks say they caught this fairly early, and that’s an obvious benefit. What things get mitigated when someone is diagnosed early in the process?
Gelabert: “There’s no question about it. The sooner you catch it and the sooner you treat it, it prevents the clot from growing larger. If it’s a smaller clot, then it can be treated much more successfully with a better outcome. If they caught this early and it wasn’t a big clot, there’s a pretty big chance he’ll be back. That’s sort of what happened with Thompson. He was shut down for the season. But he’s doing okay now. I’m hoping it would be like that for Damian. We don’t know all the detail on how extensive it was. But if they caught it early, that’s usually very favorable. The good news is that the team knows what it is, there’s treatment for it and the treatment is usually very successful. If they caught it early and it’s really small, he’ll be back and play.”
Kuo: “Early diagnosis is helpful for early treatment. Calf blood clots have a lower risk of traveling to the lungs. But it’s still important to get the diagnosis early. Early diagnosis and early treatment is always better than later.”
Weber: “The biggest concern is that a blood clot in the leg propagates and breaks off into the lungs. Then that can create shortness of breath. It can be fatal. If it gets to the lungs and blocks oxygen to the blood, it can be fatal. Those that go undetected can enlarge. If they enlarge and break off, they can become a potentially life-altering or life-threatening condition. That’s why it’s good they found this early so there is no lung compromise.”
Mark Medina is an NBA insider for Sportskeeda. Follow him on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook and Threads.