CHICAGO -- The Chicago Bulls unveiled their new 60,000-square-foot practice facility, the Advocate Center, on Friday.

Opened just 15 months after the organization broke ground in the parking lot across the street from the United Center, it's a gleaming basketball palace (estimated to cost $25 million) with a naming rights deal (Advocate Health Care), two full practice courts, spacious training areas to work out and rehab and a film room with a 95-inch TV that will combine ambiance and comfort with the "A Clockwork Orange"-like film study that coach Tom Thibodeau prefers.

It's certainly a long way from Angel Guardian. When the Chicago Bulls last practiced in Chicago, it was in a cramped gymnasium of an old orphanage in Rogers Park.

"My first meeting with the team in 1985 was at Angel Guardian and you couldn't even stand up straight in what was called the locker room," Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said Friday.

"Then [now retired senior vice president] Irwin Mandel came up with the [Deerfield] Multiplex and we thought that was fantastic. But pretty soon we found that the players showering with members of the Multiplex wasn't a great idea."

It was assistant coach Tex Winter's idea to buy "a tennis club" to turn into a private practice facility, Reinsdorf said, and the Bulls decided to just build their own, the Berto Center, which opened in 1992 and was named after Reinsdorf's assistant Sheri Berto, who passed away in 1991.

The Bulls were the first basketball team to build their own facility. Now they've caught up to some of their peers.

What's the biggest difference between the Berto Center and the new place which is adjacent to the United Center? Space.

The Berto Center was "like a prison" in design, a boxy, cramped facility with few windows. The new facility is twice the size, light and airy, with an open workout area, a large pool room with two tubs and an underwater treadmill, more office space, a players' lounge with a chef-maintained kitchen and two full courts for practice. There's even a barber chair in the team's private bathroom and a special "Gatorade Sports Fuel Bar."

The Bulls think the players, most of whom already live in the city, might get some mental benefits by not having to commute from the suburbs to games. Plus, Thibodeau's barking instructions might sound better with the new acoustics.

"At its core, though, this is a basketball place," Bulls vice president for basketball operations John Paxson said. "This is where our guys come to practice and train. We hope they establish work habits to help us become a better basketball team. That's what it's about. But it's fresh and new, and we hope our guys enjoy it here."

Fans will never see any of it. But when they're walking down Madison St. to the United Center, they can see the Bulls' championship banners, which hang over the weight room and face the street.

The Bulls were lured back to the city by mayor Rahm Emanuel, as the story goes, and the talking points state this will continue to revitalize the West Side. On Friday, Emanuel even claimed local citizens will get to use the facility in some vague, undetermined manner. Last year, Reinsdorf said the team got property tax "predictability" and "tax certainty."

"Really the city didn't do anything financially for us," Reinsdorf said. "They just expedited permits and things like that. This essentially is a privately paid-for facility."

The Bulls traveled across the country in the past two years to check out other facilities for inspiration, including the newer college facilities. Bulls general manager Gar Forman said the Oklahoma City Thunder and the University of West Virginia stood out.

While many people joked about Thibodeau installing video cameras everywhere, Forman said there were hidden cameras atop the practice floor, which will feed video instantly into their system. The executive offices overlook the courts.

The players' lounge will have chefs on hand to make meals. A few years ago, a reporter ran into Derrick Rose at a nearby Panera Bread restaurant in between training camp practices at the Berto.

Could this new facility be too cushy for a team with championship dreams?

"You think playing for Thibodeau, it's ever going to be comfortable?" Reinsdorf said. "I think what the players would really like is if we kept Thibodeau out of here."

No chance of that happening. The coach, and the team, has a new home on the West Side.