As the Nets unveiled the site of their new practice facility in Brooklyn Thursday morning, general manager Billy King couldn’t help himself from taking a shot at his crosstown rivals.
“This will be the only pro basketball team to play and practice in New York City,” King said with a smile, “because there is another one that doesn’t do that.”
It was, as you would expect, a festive mood inside the eighth floor of a warehouse in the Industry City development in Sunset Park, where the Nets will begin practicing once the facility is completed prior to the start of the 2015-16 season. After spending one final season at their New Jersey facility, the Nets will move all of their operations inside the city limits into a new state-of-the-art facility that had Mason Plumlee excited about the possibilities moving forward.
“I think they’re creating a place where guys are going to want to be here,” said Plumlee, the lone Nets player on hand Thursday morning. “I know as basketball players you want to be in the gym anyway, but there’s no reason to leave. You’ll be here in the offseason. You’ll be here in season. … It’s awesome.”
The Nets will house all of their basketball operations inside the new facility, which will be sponsored by the Hospital for Special Surgery and is one subway stop from Barclays Center. And after getting a look at the view from where the players’ lounge will be — which includes looking out at the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan skyline — Plumlee had a request for his general manager.
“It’s beautiful,” he said with a smile. “I was telling Billy, ‘I want an apartment with this kind of view.’
“I have the practice facility with it, now I have to get the apartment with it.”
Nets coach Jason Kidd — who said jokingly during the press conference that, “I’ll make sure I don’t spill any Cokes,” in a reference to his doing so against the Lakers last November late in a game and drawing a $50,000 fine — reiterated what King said Wednesday about Kevin Garnett, saying the future Hall of Famer is returning next season and will begin working out next week.
“To get [Garnett] to come back is great all the way around,” Kidd said. “Not only for the organization, but for his teammates and coaches, too.”
Kidd also said assistant coach Sean Sweeney would be running the Nets’ Summer League team next month in Orlando.
“So if I take a phone call,” Kidd said with a smile, “I won’t be in trouble.”
He said he would like to have all four of the team’s key free agents — Paul Pierce, Shaun Livingston, Alan Anderson and Andray Blatche — back in Brooklyn next season.
“Yeah, I thought those guys were all great for us,” Kidd said. “When you look at those guys, their corporate knowledge was very important going into next season because they know what we’re trying to do, so we don’t have to start over.”