Denver Nuggets president and governor, Josh Kroenke, sat down with Altitude.com’s Christopher Dempsey in a one-on-one interview ahead of tomorrow night’s NBA draft. The conversation is worth checking out in it’s entirety but two things stick out to me the most.
First, Dempsey brings up the possibility of a new training facility in the near future to which Kroenke responds:
Yeah, we’re in talks with a couple of different groups. A project that big we just got to make sure we do it right, because we don’t want to have to redo anything down the road. But they are fun conversations. I know it will be a great thing for not only the Nuggets, but for the city as well.
Training facilities are one of the main currencies in the new race to lure free agents and keep up with the Jones’s around the NBA. Philadelphia recently opened a new state-of-the-art facility that is far more than just a gym and a weight room. The facility boasts 10 basketball hoops across two full-sized basketball courts as well as a kitchen, restaurant, and chef!
The 76ers aren’t the only team that has spent big on facility upgrades. The Bucks, Celtics, Nets, Hawks, Kings, and several other teams are spending upwards of $80 million on their training facilities in an effort to both maximize their team’s performance and to be seen by fans and free agents as a first-class organization.
The Nuggets current practice facility is certainly out-dated but with the Kroenke family owning the real estate surrounding Pepsi Center (including Elitch Gardens) and the news that the team is engaged in talks with different “groups,” it seems likely that Denver will soon be part of the state-of-the-art club.
