NBA's Oklahoma City Team Chooses Temporary Training Facility

Oklahoma City Team Chooses Temporary Training Facility

The NBA's Oklahoma City franchise has reached an agreement in principal to purchase the Performance Sports Center building in Oklahoma City to use as its temporary facility for practice and basketball operations offices. The facility will require minor improvements to meet temporary team needs and NBA specifications including changes to the locker rooms, training area, office space, meeting rooms and media room (THE DAILY). In Oklahoma City, Darnell Mayberry reports the agreement "isn't expected to be finalized until Friday, but the arrangement could be extended past the 2008-09 season to accommodate the team until it moves into its permanent training facility." Oklahoma City Univ., Oklahoma Christian Univ. and Southern Nazarene Univ. were possibilities for the team's temporary practice facility, but the team "would have had to share each of those facilities with students." The team will have "full control of the Performance Sports Center, and no other activities will take place at the facility." The "30,000-square-foot facility has two full-size basketball courts, a weight room, a 65-yard indoor sprint track and full locker rooms, showers and dressing areas." Performance Sports Center GM Scott Hill said that "talks are ongoing between the team and the building's current management to determine whether the current management will reclaim full ownership and operation of the building once the team's permanent facility is built." Mayberry notes the location of the "yet-to-be-built permanent practice facility still hasn't been announced" (DAILY OKLAHOMAN, 7/23).