The Nets can finally practice like they play — in Brooklyn.
The former New Jersey team finished relocating to the Borough of Kings — more than three years after the team’s first tip-off at Barclays Center — when the organization opened its training center at Sunset Park’s Industry City on Feb. 17. The squad’s owner was glad to finally leave the so-called “Garden State” behind for good, he said.
“At last, this day has come,” Mikhail Prokhorov said. “The Nets are 100-percent a part of Brooklyn.”
The facility, a little larger than a football field, occupies the top floor of one of Industry City’s waterfront buildings and houses two full-length basketball courts, a weight room, therapeutic pools, a rooftop entertainment space, and a players’ lounge with an 18-seat movie theater. The practice court also features a panoramic view of Brooklyn and distant Manhattan, which even wowed the team’s towering, 7-foot center.
“Look at that view,” Brook Lopez said. “You got to love the view.”
The eight-season Net couldn’t wait to hang out in the lounge and play arcade games such as NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, he said.
“It’s a great day — it’s like Christmas,” Lopez said. “I know I am going to be staying hear a lot. It’s kind of like a second home for me.”
The Nets squad — which is 14–40, second-to-last in the Eastern Conference, and whose head coach just got the sack — doesn’t plan on hogging the training center. The organization plans to host basketball clinics, business-development functions, and offer internship opportunities for Sunset Park students, officials said.
