LAS VEGAS — About 25 minutes off the Las Vegas Strip, tucked inside an industrial park that once housed a go-kart track, sits one of the Golden State Warriors’ newest competitive advantages.
No, the building doesn’t belong to them. Yet, over the past five summers, it has quietly become the organization’s second home each July during NBA Summer League, a place Warriors players, coaches and executives dub “Chase South.”
The Warriors find themselves at a crossroads between their old life and a potential new one. This isn’t the two-timelines plan that was supposed to extend the Steph Curry era after the selections of James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga in 2020 and 2021, respectively. That flamed out. The 2026 version of the Warriors feels on the verge of an existential crisis between where the franchise used to be, where it wants to get back to and where it is right now.
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While LeBron James’ decision not to sign with the Warriors didn’t exactly stun people within the organization, it reinforced the reality that the group is no longer viewed as a threat in the Western Conference. Golden State will enter next season with a roster that looks nearly identical to the one that ended last year as the No. 10 seed, aside from the hope that rookie forward Yaxel Lendeborg brings. It is also a reminder of just how difficult it is to maintain high-level success in this more restrictive salary-cap era, and how tough it is to recover from Jimmy Butler’s torn ACL injury within the framework of that cap.
That has forced the Warriors to find advantages in new places. “Chase South” is one of them.
“If you come in here and you haven’t seen it before, you’ll go, ‘Wow, are we at the Chase Center?’” Warriors assistant general manager Larry Harris said.
Inside the Las Vegas Basketball Center, pictures of Curry, Draymond Green, Steve Kerr and other current and former team staffers, players and coaches adorn the walls. Warriors and Golden State Valkyries banners hang from the ceiling. Two of the actual courts the Warriors played on over the last few seasons make up part of the Las Vegas facility’s five full-sized courts. A weight room sits in the back of the building. Longtime Warriors public relations maestro Raymond Ridder and his staff have a dedicated workspace. So does the team chef, who puts together made-to-order meals while players get their work in on the courts nearby.
Memories from the Warriors’ championship era fill the walls of the team’s Las Vegas training home. (Nick Friedell / The Athletic)
The Warriors believe the large, once-nondescript building has become a secret weapon beyond the strong summer play of rookie Lendeborg, the scoring of LJ Cryer and the rest of the young talent on their 2026 NBA Summer League-winning team.
So how did a building that once housed a go-kart track become one of the NBA’s most popular teams’ offseason home and a first-of-its-kind training facility (at least in the NBA)?
Part of the answer to that question goes back nearly a decade, when Las Vegas residents Eric Bauman, and his wife, Claire Kohatsu, were searching for gym space for their oldest son and his middle-school teammates. What began as phone calls between parents trying to find a place to play became something much bigger when Bauman learned the building that houses the go-kart track was for sale. After discussing with Kohatsu, Bauman bought the property and received the keys on Jan. 1, 2020.
He transformed the concrete track into a basketball facility, installing multiple courts — each with the family crest — and prepared to open in early March. Then, a week after the Las Vegas Basketball Center hosted its first event, the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a halt. Bauman maintained the facility throughout the shutdown, hoping that events would still follow once the world opened up again. He and his family didn’t host another event in the facility until Memorial Day in 2021.
But his faith paid off when the Warriors began searching for a permanent home for summer league practices after the NBA resumed its offseason calendar. The Las Vegas Basketball Center was waiting.
After four decades as the Warriors longtime equipment manager, Eric Housen has learned to recognize an opportunity when he sees it.
When the Warriors began searching for a place to practice once summer league returned in August 2021, Housen wanted the team to find more than a temporary gym. For years, NBA teams have worked out at local high schools and in makeshift ballrooms, having to fight for a couple hours between any other events scheduled at various facilities.
“When we first started here, it was 2005, I think,” Housen said. “We practiced at multiple different facilities. And it was like, you had that two-hour block. A team was on before you, a team was on after you, there’s people walking through practice.”
What Housen envisioned was a facility the Warriors could make into their own over time. While the Warriors don’t own the building, Housen estimates that the team has invested “close to a million” dollars into the facility. They still pay the same court fees as any other customer. Bauman blocks off the time in his building whenever the summer league schedule comes out or when Housen tries to coordinate when a player is coming through town.
After a successful first season working with Bauman, Housen and the Warriors started to add a little bit more each year they came back to Vegas.
During that time, training equipment has improved. There are better shot clocks and basket stanchions. The walls slowly filled up with Warriors branding, photos and memorabilia, including a section honoring the organization’s Deki (Brate) award, given to members who best exemplify the spirit of beloved former assistant coach Dejan Milojević, who died suddenly in 2024 after a heart attack.
Today, players from both the Warriors and Valkyries can use the facility around the clock whenever they are in Las Vegas. Brandin Podziemski attended several recent summer league practices and worked out in the background. Curry has used the facility when traveling through Vegas in the past.
It’s also becoming a destination for other players throughout the league. The day Giannis Antetokounmpo was traded from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Miami Heat, he was inside the Las Vegas Basketball Center working out.
“That was Monday night,” Bauman said. “So then he came Tuesday and kind of had a laugh, like, ‘Did anything happen?’”
Bauman said Antetokounmpo wound up spending three straight days at the facility, including one workout with new Heat teammate Bam Adebayo.
It’s those kinds of relationships that Harris knows have both players and executives talking when they see the partnership that the Warriors have created with Bauman and his building in recent years.
“There’s part of a selling that comes in here too,” Harris said. “A free agent comes in here, players come in here and go, ‘Hey, can I come work out with you?’ All of a sudden, word kind of spreads like, ‘Hey, this is what it’s like every day.’”
There are a lot of NBA personnel who filter through the building throughout July, while pickup games often spill across the facility’s five courts. Harris believes that the trend the Warriors have started by having their own facility will be followed by other teams down the line.
As Lendeborg settled into his first summer league with the Warriors, he was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that the organization had its own home away from home, one that includes his picture already up on the wall.
“It’s definitely ridiculous,” he said. “I was looking at the wall when I first walked in like, ‘Do they do this for every NBA team?’ And then they’re like, ‘No, this is ours only’ Like, what?”
Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg did a double take when he saw a photo of himself from his Michigan days hanging inside the Vegas facility. (Nick Friedell / The Athletic)
Lendeborg also was excited about the snack area.
“I’ve been looking at all the stuff, the snacks they have out there, like is this for us to take? “Like, Yeah! Take as much as you want.” That’s crazy,” he said.
When the Warriors leave town in late July and head back to the Bay Area, the building remains a destination for new players coming through. Bauman often hears a question as people look around at some of the hardwood in the building.
“Why would you do a replica?” Bauman is asked.
It isn’t. They’re the same floors that Curry created basketball magic on in the Bay.
“They’re like, “Whhhooaa!” he said.
In the NBA arms race for the best facilities that seems to get more competitive each year, the Warriors’ decision to pour money into a facility in Las Vegas that was a go-kart track just a few years ago is a reminder of team owner Joe Lacob’s investment in the pursuit of every possible competitive edge.
“I don’t know what the other 29 teams are doing,” Harris said. “I’ve told people that will ever listen, ‘No,’ just doesn’t come out of his mouth. (He’s asking) ‘what can we do to be better? What can we do on the margins to do something that’s a little bit different, gives us an advantage?’”
Housen has learned, through his four decades in the NBA, that there’s always a way to get better at what you’re doing, a lesson that he has applied to the Warriors’ Vegas partnership, passed down to him by another all-time great Warrior.
“My vision is always more,” Housen said. “I kinda learned that from Chris Mullin. Three miles wasn’t good enough. Five miles was better. 200 shots made wasn’t good enough. 1,000 shots made was better. So you’re always trying to better your craft and your game and give these guys the best opportunity to be successful.”
As Housen looks to make his next upgrades to the Warriors’ summer palace, the organization knows it will have at least one new addition to the walls in the near future. That would be the team photo the group took on its first day of summer league practices in Vegas. The same team that went on to win the showcase a few weeks later.
“We’ve certainly got every penny out of it,” Housen said.
