Long before the 2016 NBA Draft, the Philadelphia 76ers went about constructing the training center and infrastructure to support a championship caliber team. Much like the tean’s red-shirted rookies, it’s about to become reality this year.
Attention to details, multi-tasking, going beyond the job description are all catchy buzz phrases which oftentimes found their way to a resume, but seldom find their way to describe an NBA franchise, until now. You see, while simultaneously assembling a roster which can win in the NBA today and into the foreseeable future, the Philadelphia 76ers embarked on the quest to build a training facility to match their lofty aspirations, as well as an organization infrastructure to support their players throughout their Philadelphia 76ers careers.
That is all about to kick in this year.
L👀kin' g👀d. pic.twitter.com/Kx84haa4CX
— brianseltzer (@brianseltzer) July 24, 2016
And so, the Philadelphia 76ers are about to occupy one of the premier sports training facilities anywhere in the world. We’ve covered the story before:
If You Build It, Philadelphia 76ers Will Come
"The facility will be situated on 125,000 square feet campus in the Camden New Jersey along the waterfront, and will be marked with a 4000 square foot sign which will be visible in Philadelphia (the facility is in New Jersey). The facility will boast two basketball courts, a 70,000 square foot roof deck, a hydrotherapy room, a 2,800 square foot locker room, a state-of-the-art private players restaurant, innovation health and wellness centers, a Larry O’Brien Trophy room, a board room and sales center that overlooks the basketball courts, and will house 250 employees, including the largest sales staff of any NBA team. The facility will even include a media production center, used both in analytics and in media efforts to communicate team events. Throughout the facility, Sixers stories will be commemorated by narratives and images on display. In short, it is a crown jewel of the Philadelphia 76ers team, and will be open 24 hours a day seven days a week."
A huge facility to house the Philadelphia 76ers organization. But the organization itself has evolved. Former president and general manager Sam Hinkie saw to it that the Philadelphia 76ers ascended from word processing and paper files to computerized networking, analytical tools, video and computer imaging, and converted a very backward operation to the cutting edge of the NBA.
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The evolution was not just to employ computer staff in a new IT department, but rather to provide maximized and personalized support to each player. Recording practices, gym work after practice, and even scrimmages gives the team irreplaceable data and perspective on the quality and best training path for each player. This analytics does not stop at the player level, as it gives a coach immediate feedback of the effectiveness of what he’s doing , and the opportunity to change course mid stream to compensate for areas where the team is struggling. It also gives the team the map to building a championship, a path oftentimes too obscured by the sheer need to remain employed.
While players are improving, the team needs expertise in keeping them healthy and on the basketball court. That is where the team’s Director of Performance Research and Development steps in. Dr. David T. Martin. Martin is a world leader in the field of sports science and sports medicine, a field he helped create for 21 years working at the Advanced Institute of Sports (AIS) in Canberra, Australia. Since arriving, he has been steering the return to health of Joel Embiid, a journey that had many pitfalls to avoid. It’s that expertise which gives the Philadelphia 76ers the opportunity to make true assessments of NBA players who have been injured, and get a better idea of just what the team is facing injury-wise for a potential free agent or trade, before it happens.
From the moment all the new faces arrive, they will be swept into a series of meetings about the Philadelphia 76ers organization, an NBA franchise which has created a nearly military-like support system to help it’s players face the grueling regiment of the NBA season.
This year, the Philadelphia 76ers have brought three veterans on-board in the form of Sergio Rodriguez, Jerryd Bayless, and Gerald Henderson. As they integrate into the 76ers system, word will quickly spread whether the team has achieved its mark of creating one of the best organizations in the NBA.
That reputation, if earned, will spread quickly, and by this time next season, with a more successful record , the team will begin to fall on the radar of some of the better NBA players in the league.
Next: The Sport Science Team Has Been Building up to This Season
You can’t just pluck a championship team out of the ground. It takes an effort of hundreds of people, all knowing their roles, all contributing their utmost. That is what the Philadelphia 76ers are today. An organization awaiting their champions.