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Date: 2/13/2016
Outlet: Star Tribune
Author: Jerry Zgoda
State-of-the-art practice facilities all the rage in the NBA
There is an arms race raging across the NBA, and this one isn’t leaving the Timberwolves behind in the proverbial construction dust.
Last summer, the Wolves opened their new $25 million Courts at Mayo Clinic Square, one of the league’s 13 state-of-the-art practice facilities that have opened since 2013 or are coming by 2018.
Among them: The Bulls opened their $25 million facility across the street from United Center nine months before the Wolves opened theirs. Toronto opened its $38 million (Canadian dollars, about $27 million U.S.) facility on Wednesday. Brooklyn’s $50 million facility opens this week when the Nets return from the All-Star break. Philadelphia’s $80 million complex should be ready for training camp this fall.
They are homes away from home intended to draw players for breakfast and keep them at work through dinner with such amenities as multiple basketball courts, player lounges and team offices, interactive television screens with access to NBA stats and game video, hot tubs and cold tubs, plunge pools and hydrotherapy rooms, spacious fitness and weight rooms, underwater treadmills, yoga space and a full-service kitchen as well as concierge service, massage therapists, resident chefs and barbers. All of it comes with 24/7 access. It’s a long way from when Toronto’s Dwane Casey coached the Wolves for 122 games a decade ago. When he worked at Target Center, the team practiced in the arena health club one floor down.
“I remember going down in the basement here, people running in the health club next door,” Casey said, “and watching what you’re doing in your shootaround.”
Now the Wolves have a 107,000-square-foot complex that includes a Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Clinic. The Raptors’ just-opened facility is 68,000 square feet and overlooks Lake Ontario.
“It’s our space,” said Toronto guard Kyle Lowry, who with teammate DeMar DeRozan will play in Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game just down the road at Air Canada Centre. “It’s just more comfortable. We don’t have to rush in and rush out. You can’t get kicked out. There’s no concerts, no hockey games. It’s our space. It’s our building. And it’s an amazing building.”
Wolves guard Zach LaVine has spent much of his young life in gyms, just not a gym envisioned by then-President of Basketball Operations Flip Saunders and approved by consulting star Kevin Love before he was traded in August 2014. “I never want to leave the gym anyway,” LaVine said. “Now it’s so nice, I really don’t want to leave.”
Players can stay there all day, every day all season if they so choose, but such investments might pay off most in summer, when Casey predicts the Raptors’ gleaming new building — as well as others around the league — will serve as a recruiting tool for prospective free agents.
“Huge,” Casey said when asked about the potential impact. “If a guy doesn’t walk in there and is not impressed by the space and the technology, the equipment in the weight room, sauna. … It may be a little too nice, if there is such a thing. We don’t want a guy to get too comfortable, feel like they’re in a spa and get soft on us.”
DeRozan has seen all the bells and whistles with his team’s new space and is impressed by one thing most of all.
“It’s closer to my house, by four minutes,” he said. “With all the things that are in there, it makes you not leave the gym, honestly. I’ll probably spend about the same time there, I’ll just get a little more sleep.”
Wolves Press Clippings
Date: 2/13/2016
Outlet: Star Tribune
Author: Jerry Zgoda
Wolves' LaVine says he has fresh material for dunk championship defense
Revealing only that he has something up his sleeve, Timberwolves young star Zach LaVine isn’t giving away many secrets regarding the defense of his All-Star slam dunk contest Saturday other than start big and don’t miss any.
He achieved both in New York this time last year, when he dunked his way to worldwide fame with a runaway victory.
This time, he says he believes he has solved a dunk contest’s biggest challenge: Coming up with something new.
“That’s the hardest thing,” he said. “Back in the day, Michael Jordan could use the same dunk three times. I don’t want to do that. I could come out and use the dunks I did last year and people would be like, ‘Oh, he did last year.’ You need four or five new dunks that you haven’t done before, so it’s a little challenging but that’s what YouTube is for.”
LaVine incorporated teammates Andrew Wiggins and Shabazz Muhammad into his routine last year. This time, he hints that there’s a place for Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns on the big stage at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, where he will compete against Denver’s Will Barton, Orlando’s Aaron Gordon and Detroit’s Andre Drummond.
“Andrew might be back, KAT’s goofy self might be making an appearance,” LaVine said coyly. “I’m just glad they’ll be on the sideline again this year.” Wiggins held a ball that LaVine snatched out of his hand and Muhammad threw one at the basket stanchion that LaVine grabbed as soared toward the basket and dunked.
“I don’t know, we’ll see on Saturday what he tells us,” said Towns, who will help represent the NBA’s big men in a Saturday skills-challenge contest before LaVine competes in the slam dunk. “I think he has some very cool stuff in store.” Towns used the words “extraterrestrial bounce” to describe one of the dunks he has seen. He watched LaVine practice Thursday night in Toronto and tweeted “OMG! Grab your popcorn cause he making a movie on Saturday.”
On Friday, Towns told NBA TV, “I went yesterday and saw what I saw with my own eyes and I still can’t believe it. It’s not from this world. Humans are not supposed to do what he does … I think we need a farther galaxy for him, for the dunks he’s got planned.”
Still, LaVine said he intends to keep things simple.
“I’m more old-school style,” LaVine said. “I don’t use a lot of props. I’m doing a couple exciting things. I just try to keep it regular, keep it to the dunks, use my athleticism and jump high. And try to get the crowd into it.”
LaVine said he consulted Vince Carter, who won the 2000 slam-dunk contest with perhaps the event’s most electrifying performance of all time but didn’t return to defend his title the next year.
“The way I won last year, it’s hard to top yourself,” LaVine said. “That’s what Vince said. I know I have some other stuff left. I like impressing people. I’m a little bit of a showoff so my boys talked me into it. I know the fans want to see me do it again. I just want to put on a good show and have fun again.”
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