The Raptors yesterday unveiled their "freshly completed, two-storey, 68,000-square foot" practice facility to the media prior to this weekend's NBA All-Star Game, according to Chris O'Leary of the TORONTO STAR. The BioSteel Centre has "two full-size courts," and the locker-room "strongly resembles the one the team will use on its game days at the Air Canada Centre and has individual TV monitors above each locker." There is a "large gym, a training area, a rehabilitation area with hot and cold tubs and an underwater treadmill." The player’s lounge "has a full-service kitchen and dining room." Raptors President & GM Masai Ujiri's workspace "might be the most impressive part of the entire building." There is a "broad, interactive touch-screen stretching across the back wall of the room." There are "interactive screens built into the tables that provide every conceivable piece of data that could go into comparing, trading or drafting players." It "looks like the computer tools of a futuristic sci-fi movie brought to life." The Raptors and MLSE "partnered with IBM to create IBM Sports Insights Central." While the Raptors are "far from the first team in the league to build a practice facility separate from their arena, Ujiri hopes he and his team have put themselves at the front of the pack with what they have" (TORONTO STAR, 2/11). In Toronto, Ryan Wolstat writes, "From the best-in-class training and treatment facilities, to the offices for staff and of course on to the first of its kind war room that appears to have been taken out of a movie featuring flying cars and warp drives, it was impossible not to be impressed." MLSE Chair Larry Tanenbaum said, “This facility is ultimately a demonstration of our commitment to giving an NBA championship to this city" (TORONTO SUN, 2/11).
