Suns’ unveil cutting edge high-tech practice facility

In a great new story at Forbes, reporter Tim Newcomb gives a nice inside look at the Suns’ new practice facility, which is on the corner of 44th Street and Camelback, and surprisingly features a ton of new technology through a partnership with Verizon.

The Suns will monitor tracking data on players using pre-existing 150 cameras as well as ShotTracker and Noah Basketball technology as well as enhanced 5G Ultra Wideband capabilities from Verizon. That compared to the old practice court at the arena, which had just four (!) cameras.

“Having these cameras on the court for five-on-five play while players are shooting and dribbling, our performance guys will see how these players move in these settings,” said Ryan Resch, the Suns’ director of basketball strategy.

On to the cooler stuff. Rather than overloading the building with huge weights or unnecessary machines, the Suns are using tech in their workout rooms, too. The team installed a ceiling apparatus that will give players the chance to work on upper-body strength and work on rebounding with medicine balls. They will also use camera tracking to work on mobility, in addition to anti-gravity and underwater treadmills.

“In terms of layout, we wanted to have the players focus on the court,” Robert Sarver said in the story. “It is oriented toward looking at the court.”

He means that both literally and figuratively. The architecture of the building is centered around the hardwood at the center of it, but also, the new tech and data additions are centered around on-court performance.

Both the Suns and Mercury also have locker rooms at the facility that are exact replicas of the new ones at the arena, which is of course being renovated.

There is a negative edge jacuzzi as well, in addition to a personal chef soon.

All of it is a huge upgrade over what was in place at the arena before, which amounted to one weight room and a practice court. The Suns hope it will make a big impact.

Check the video out here: