For the Spurs, 'sustainability' is an idea that runs deep

From the basketball court to the coffee bar and everything in between, San Antonio is making sure all angles are covered as it heads into an era of great expectation.

Photo credit: Reginald Thomas II, SS&E

The concept of longevity and the implementation of practices to ensure it have long been priorities for the San Antonio organization, and there’s plenty of evidence at surface level for the most casual among us to recognize that with even a cursory glance. Roster continuity and loyalty toward players are easy enough to track by simply reviewing year-over-year turnover, or taking a look back at the parade of former Spurs the team brought in for each home game during its 50th-anniversary celebration last season, or the thousand different stories of admiration seemingly parroted by voices and personalities around the league whenever the names of Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford are mentioned.

But surface level isn’t deep enough if one truly wants to understand the lengths this franchise goes to build a long-lasting product in this city, or why players (once they actually get to San Antonio) seem to love it so much. For that, the deeper you dig, the more you’ll discover. And the new Victory Capital Performance Center at The Rock at La Cantera is just the start of what’s to come for the team’s future in San Antonio.

The facility — which is part of what will eventually be a $500-million, 46-acre complex funded primarily by private money — is ridiculous in the best ways possible. Covering 134,000 square feet, it’s going to practically be the home of every Spur who walks in the building for the duration of their career in San Antonio. It has every bell and whistle imaginable, it looks beautiful, and sitting along the upper lip of a 60-foot quarry cliff overseeing Six Flags Fiesta Texas, it’s about as private as a building that size is gonna get. Unless you’re perched atop the “Scream!” ride with a telescope, you’re not gonna be able to get a peek inside.

But that’s the superficial element of the equation, one that has very little to do with longevity even if it catches the eye of a future free agent or two. The real meat and potatoes is located between the walls, where the priority is the human condition.

Seeds of a plan for this project began seven years ago, when Spurs Senior Director of Basketball Operations Phil Cullen took it on as his primary focus. He and Buford, along with all contractors, engineers and architects involved — project developer Lincoln Property Company partnered with lead architect ZGF, as well as RVK architecture locally — put an extraordinary amount of thought into every foot of the structure. And it all starts with mindfulness and mental well-being.

Cullen described the “deepest, darkest” corners of the locker room as some of the unhealthiest places in all of sports, so the group made sure most of the building was bathed in natural light.

The hydrotherapy room, featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, is complete with a full-length pool, an underwater treadmill, a cold plunge, and a hot tub with neck-massagers. Through a door off to the side, there’s a sauna and a sensory-deprivation chamber, all features that aid in recovery and ideally alleviate stress and anxiety.

“When we talk about mindfulness and just player health overall, the idea of natural light was a big piece we wanted to bring in the building. It feels more spa-quality than it does locker room, so that was a big piece,” Cullen said. “We talk about recovery, and hydrotherapy is a big part of it. It’s really about, ‘How can we optimize their performance so we can get our players to operate 100 percent on a back-to-back?’ So this space was a major investment.

“And the idea of wellness and mindfulness, it wasn’t just about our players, it was about our staff as well,” he continued. “Making sure we’re taking care of all our people, not just our players, is a continued theme throughout.”

Around the corner, past rows of sitting/standing desks and offices for staff and employees, is the weight room, with access to a shooting court and an outdoor courtyard where players can take part in environmental training during different seasons of the year, as well as hot yoga. Then you get to the gym itself, again, bathed in natural light, equipped with the latest in shot-tracking technology, and lined with the same giant wooden beams you see throughout the largest mass-timber construction in the state of Texas.

Photo credit: Reginald Thomas II, SS&E

“Sustainability was a big part of our inspiration as far as designing our structural support,” Cullen said. “We have [an acre] of solar panels on the roof, and we also have a rainwater-capture (system) for the entire site as well.”

That word, “sustainability,” was not only used to describe the building’s environmental impact, or the health of players and staff. The Spurs also built this facility with interpersonal relationships in mind, which are key in fostering a strong culture of longevity.

Aside from the first-floor parking garage and front entrance, as well as what will eventually be the third-floor Spurs Club — a members-only social club and private dining experience headed by Steve McHugh, the chef behind local restaurants Cured and Landrace — the entire building rests on a single floor. From the “spa,” to the weight room, to the offices, to the court, to the kitchen (where the team hopes players can take lessons from culinary experts on how to cook for themselves) and restaurant-style lounge, to the barista bar dedicated to the Spurs Coffee Gang, San Antonio has made it a point to eliminate multiple floors from its day-to-day experience.

Why? Because, as Cullen put it, the team is encouraging “casual collisions.”

It wants staff, players, coaches and executives to run into one another with regularity — to share a space rather than be separated by brick and mortar. It believes in order to be successful, all pieces of the organizational hierarchy must be able to congregate, ideate and work together, and to flatly be able to interact around the proverbial or literal water cooler.

“There are many places in sports where the way the building was designed separated front office and coaching and created a thought disconnect,” Buford said. “We were intentional and purposeful in trying to bring people together and, for the larger team, maintain that culture.”

And measures to establish accountability didn’t stop there. Training tables in the treatment area are elevated so there’s a direct line of sight between players getting worked on and coaches on the court. And speaking of line of sight, the televisions in said training area are angled down from the ceiling in an effort to get players off their phones while receiving treatment. Sure, you may be asking them to move from one screen to another, but at least they’ll be looking up — baby steps for the Zoomer generation.

While the practice facility has been the priority to date, the rest of the complex — which will eventually include a state-of-the-art medical-research institute — is what will further separate it from your standard NBA practice site. Every team pampers its players (to varying degrees), but none have what the Spurs are building for their fans, and the community is going to play a major role in the growth of this complex.

San Antonio is set to complete the construction of Frost Plaza in late-October, a one-and-a-half-acre public space that will feature everything from a pavilion, to a splashpad, to “arts in the park” events, to a giant LED screen for movie nights and watch parties during Spurs games (the first of which is tentatively planned for early November). There are also plans for a not-yet-named public restaurant, as well as a hotel on the west side of the campus. Across the street is a 22-acre park the organization and the USAA Real Estate Co. have donated to the county, which has agreed to contribute $17 million in tax rebates for further development of the area.

This space won’t just be for the team, but also for the people who support it, and the city it strives to represent.

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I say this without hyperbole: The Spurs are the envy of the NBA right now. While contending teams are more than happy to be where they are, there’s a sicko deep down in the heart of every general manager who views basketball utopia as having a young, moldable, generational talent in the building, along with pristine cap flexibility, a treasure trove of draft assets, and the league’s pre-eminent practice facility to call home. Throw in a new arena a few years down the road and you may have reached hoops heaven.

But San Antonio knows that looming on the horizon is one of the most critical stretches of time in the franchise’s history. One might think the drafting of Victor Wembanyama would allow for a little relaxation, but it has not. Happiness? Yes. Relaxation? Lol. They view this good fortune through a prism of massive responsibility, and they’re feeling every ounce of that weight. Everything has to be perfect, and fortunately for them, all the scuff marks collected over the last several years have been wiped off the slate — remembered only as tools for character-building and experience for future crossroads.

They also know, while what they’re building on the business and logistics sides of the operation is as impressive as it is promising, the element that truly matters to most prying eyes is whether or not this all translates to success on the court. It’s about the development of Victor Wembanyama and the growth of the roster that’s surrounding him; it’s about identifying the right supporting cast members among the many who will be auditioning in the year to come; it’s about ensuring the young, veteran, non-Wemby core makes the requisite leap; and it’s about properly managing draft assets moving forward in a way that maximizes what is currently only stored potential.

This group is not oblivious to the fact it has everything it could possibly ask for in preparing a successful, sustainable future in San Antonio, and it understands the pressures that come with such high expectations. Now, as their 51st season approaches, the Spurs hope they’ll once again be able to execute their plan to completion all these years later.

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