Lakers Offseason: Inside Look At the Lakers’ New Training Facility in El Segundo

The Los Angeles Lakers unveiled details and rendering of their new headquarters and practice facility that will also serve as the LA D-Fenders home court

If you thought the legendary Los Angeles Lakers organization and players practice facility was the Taj Mahal of NBA buildings equal to the legacy of the ball club, you would be wrong.

Simply to find it you have to pass three different ice rinks, shiver and climb two flights of stairs to the very back of the Toyota Center all the while smelling sweaty socks and condensation. It’s not pleasant. So it was about time something was done to create a practice facility which matched the prowess of the Lakers’ organization.

Currently, the Lakers operations staff are housed in two different buildings, so they wanted to bring everyone together. The Clippers finished a 42,500 square foot standalone facility in Playa Vista in September 2008. The Lakers are behind the times, they are starting eight years later, but the Lakers facility will be almost three times the size.

The new $80 million Lakers practice facility is under construction and will be completed in the Spring of 2017 if there are no delays. The Lakers wanted to focus on the theme of integration with the basketball court as the focus of the facility, so they put it in the center and built around it:

"“There are many ways we could have configured this building, but the basketball court is right in the middle and everything else is around it,” said Carl Meyer, principal at Perkins+Will, the associate architect.“Whether someone works in sales, sponsorships, accounting or social media, they all felt they needed to be exposed and next to the basketball part of the organization.”"

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The combination of glass and steel facility will include a 122,000-square-feet of space with two stories and a double basketball court for Lakers’ practices and D-Fenders home games. There will be a training area, two half-courts, an area for the team to hang out, an atrium and the corporate headquarters. This fun factory of basketball will be located at 710 N. Nash St. in El Segundo.

The first floor will house the training and weight rooms and open up to the basketball court. The business operations will have to take the elevator to the second level but will have windows that look down on the court. The second level was inspired by the Larry O’Brien trophies the Lakers organization has earned.

Picture walking into a black painted foyer with a huge Lakers sign in purple in gold, make your way out to the atrium, into the plush media room and into the new practice court which is equipped with retractable seating of about ten rows for D-Fenders games. Not too shabby!

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Again, it’s about time, but it will be worth the wait to finally get a practice facility worthy of housing all of the Lakers’ championship trophies.