Bulls looking to sell naming rights of new downtown practice facility
BY JOE COWLEY jcowley@suntimes.com November 29, 2012 8:38PM
Updated: January 1, 2013 6:38AM
Bulls president and chief operating officer Michael Reinsdorf confirmed on Thursday that the team is looking to sell the naming rights to the new downtown practice facility, which is scheduled to open for the 2014-15 season.
The Bulls announced two weeks ago that the new facility would be built in Parking Lot J, which sits east of the United Center.
Team chairman Jerry Reinsdorf went through this process in 2003, getting a 23-year, $68 million deal to change the name of Comiskey Park to U.S. Cellular Field.
Bulls players expressed their excitement about the new facility the day it was announced.
“It makes more sense, obviously with our arena being right there, to practice downtown,’’ forward Carlos Boozer said. “A few of us already have homes downtown. And the bottom line is, it’s the Bulls, baby. They’re going to make it the best practice facility on the planet, so it’s going to be awesome.’’
Getting defensive
Head coach Tom Thibodeau hasn’t gone into details about his new bench players struggling to learn his defensive sets, but that didn’t stop forward Taj Gibson from shedding light on the problem.
“At times, it’s been different because they’re still figuring out the defensive sets, the defensive slides,’’ Gibson said. “They don’t understand that in the fourth quarter we’re used to just locking down on ‘D’. The fourth quarter has mostly been the backbones of our team, knowing that we don’t let anybody score in the fourth, so it’s still a long ways to go and we’ll eventually get it.’’
