Diana Taurasi, Mercury GM compare their team’s, Suns practice facility amenities

The Las Vegas Aces were the first WNBA team to have its own multimillion-dollar practice facility last year, then the Mercury followed suit and took it to another level.

The Mercury’s new downtown Phoenix practice facility unveiled to the media on July 19 is the league’s first to have their courts named after a player, who happens to be still active, Diana Taurasi.

Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Mat Ishbia told reporters that the usually stoic Taurasi was “emotional” from her initial glimpse of her silhouette logo on the dual Diana Taurasi Courts’ floor. The Mercury’s facility is within Ishbia’s $100 million Player 15 Group’s 58,000-square-foot building, which houses both teams’ operations near the Footprint Center.

“We’ve set the bar as far as what a facility for a professional athlete looks like, male or female,” Taurasi said during Team USA interviews last Friday. “When you want to be the best professional athlete that you can be, a facility like that just makes life easier for you.

“Mat has all the resources, but more than that, his care factor’s through the roof. He truly wants not only our team but our league to really succeed. Mat had that on his radar from the day he got here and he got it done.”

Team USA was the first to practice at the Diana Taurasi Courts before last Saturday’s All-Star Game. The Mercury temporarily added the USA basketball insignia in the plush locker room and personalized the Team USA members’ lockers with their initials before Saturday’s game.

“Beautiful facility,” the Connecticut Sun’s Alyssa Thomas said last Friday. “The standard that a lot of teams are trying to get to.”

Ishbia isn’t just pouring money into the Mercury’s own high-tech practice facility for his goals to attract the league’s top talent in the near future and winning the most championships in league history.

He wants to inspire other team owners to do the same as the WNBA continues gaining more popularity and financial investors.

“Is it going to help us draw more free agents, more people to want to come here?” Ishbia said. “Yes, it will, but I hope it’s a short-term competitive advantage because I hope the rest of the league rises up. That’s what it’s about.”

The Chicago Sky recently announced they will follow the Mercury’s lead.

On Sunday, Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Sky will have their own extravagant 40,000 square-foot practice facility like the Mercury and Aces, scheduled to open in December 2025. The Sky’s facility will have similar amenities as the Mercury’s: personalized locker rooms, two regulation courts, private chef’s kitchen, beauty stations, content studio, player lounges, strength and cardio training room and film room.

The Mercury also have hydrotherapy, sauna and meeting rooms.

Mercury GM: ‘Two world-class facilities under our umbrella’

Mercury Ring of Honor inductee Bridget Pettis was one of the many women’s basketball legends alongside fellow inductee Cheryl Miller and Hall of Famers Rebecca Lobo and Ann Meyers Drysdale, who attended the Diana Taurasi Courts ceremony.

Pettis recalled the days when WNBA teams didn’t have this luxury when she played for the Mercury from 1997-2001 and again in 2006. The Suns shared their former practice space with the Mercury within the Footprint Center, and when the Suns’ Verizon 5G Performance Center opened in 2020.

“The elevation of the WNBA is beautiful to watch,” Pettis told The Republic. “We were fortunate enough in Phoenix to practice in the Suns’ facility. That was a nice court to practice on, but we did know that it wasn’t ours to be on.

“We had very limited time and space in there. And a lot of (WNBA) organizations had to go in different facilities like in high schools. … It’s just special to have your own facility to just hone in on your talent and your skill and better yourself as an organization.”

Most of the Suns and Mercury facilities’ features are similar. The Mercury’s first-year general manager, Nick U’Ren, told The Republic the teams’ ownership is looking to have “two world-class facilities under our umbrella” but pointed out the differences, too.

“The one thing I’ll say about our new facility is how spacious it is,” U’Ren said. “There’s two courts here (at the Suns facility) and two courts are our place, but it just feels a little more open and spacious. The locker room’s super spacious, the bathroom’s super spacious over there. Rightfully so, we’re a women’s basketball team. Our women’s staff has their own locker room, and they didn’t have that here. Those are things that jump out to me.”

One of the most noticeable features at the Suns and Mercury facilities is the interactive Noah Pro, which most NBA, WNBA and top NCAA programs have. That’s a shot-tracking solution consisting of a camera within large, square black boxes positioned on the walls behind the baskets on both ends of the courts.

The Noah collects data on shot location. It measures the arc, depth and angles at which the ball lands at the basket. The data creates reports for the coaching staff and other team personnel about the player’s shooting accuracy.

But the Noah Splash Board at the Diana Taurasi Courts displays that information, whereas the Suns’ Verizon 5G Performance Center practice courts don’t have that on their practice court walls.

“In this (Suns) facility, we get all the reports,” U’Ren said. “The players just don’t get the real-time feedback on the screens, and that’s the difference over there is we got the screens that show real-time,”

The Suns and Mercury team sources told The Republic that the ownership group will continue developing the Suns facility too, possibly adding the Splash Board soon.

“We’re been there for three years,” Taurasi said. “It’s an amazing location. It’s state of the art. I think they were just trying to bring a different view of what a practice facility looks like for a women’s team.

“There’s just little things that make it more friendly to a WNBA team. There’s an energy when you walk in that you want to get things done. I love that vibe.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Mercury GM compares the team’s, Suns practice facilities