The Los Angeles Lakers brass had a lot of thinking to do when designing their new home.

Decadeslong nomads, bouncing from practice space to space, the 16-time NBA champions still never had a facility of their own. But last week, architects revealed details of the Lakers’ recently approved new headquarters and training facility in El Segundo, set to open in late spring 2017.

The visioning process for the $80 million facility that will house all team operations was no easy feat, however.

“It was a pretty intense process. Jeanie Buss (part-owner and president) said it was like therapy,” said Jim Renne, a principal at Rossetti, the lead architect, of the two-day visioning workshop. “You’re asked to think about, ‘What do you envision from here on out? What’s important to you?’ We had people talking to each other who rarely did.”

What emerged as the team’s priority was integration.

The two-story, 122,000-square-foot facility at 710 N. Nash St. will include a double basketball court for Lakers practices and D-Fenders home games, two half-courts, a training area, team area, atrium and the corporate headquarters.

“This is creating a new home, bringing everyone together in one place. Right now, operations are in two different buildings,” Renne said. “This was a chance to architecturally organize their home.”

And at the center of it all is basketball. The facility is built around the double court.

“There are many ways we could have configured this building, but the basketball court is right in the middle and everything else is around it,” said Carl Meyer, principal at Perkins+Will, the associate architect. “Whether someone works in sales, sponsorships, accounting or social media, they all felt they needed to be exposed and next to the basketball part of the organization.”

Meyer said Buss and other executives working in business operations on the second level will have windows that look down on to the court. The ground-level facilities, including the training and weight rooms, open up to the court.

“It’s all about basketball,” he said.

The building, to be constructed of glass, metal and steel, will feature integrated signage and a pattern of bronze-colored vertical fins along the facade, providing light and visibility while screening direct sunlight and excess heat. The second-floor design was inspired by the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, expressed in the rich, reflective and tonal composition of glazing, dark bronze paneling and vertical light bronze signage, the architects said.

The team envisioned a timeless, classic look.

“The team, starting with Jeanie Buss, is incredibly humble,” Renne said. “They didn’t want to create anything ostentatious. It wasn’t about that. They wanted to integrate into the community and try to create a sense of transparency.”

The Lakers see the resulting building as elegant and reserved, Meyer said. The Lakers logo and signage is quite large, but also very subtle, embedded into the architecture of the building, he said.

“There’s not a huge yellow sign that says, ‘Lakers,’ ” he said. “It’s a significant presence, but it’s quiet and subtle and elegant.”

However, it’s still obviously the Lakers building, with the iconic team logo on the roof, clearly visible to passengers flying into LAX, much different than the team’s current practice facility, the Toyota Sports Center, where the Los Angeles Kings also practice.

“We’re thrilled with the design, not only visually, but also in how it’ll create a comfortable, vibrant and effective environment, both for our business offices and a training and basketball space for our players,” said John Black, the team’s spokesman.

Aside from providing a home away from home for players and integrating all operations, the new facility had another, more pressing purpose.

“With all the teams now really having to compete for free agents, the ante has been upped in terms of recruiting,” Renne said. “Training centers are becoming one of those tools, providing something that a free agent would be really attracted to, a state-of-the-art facility and place where they would feel comfortable spending a lot of time at. It’s not a rudimentary gym anymore.”

Renne said the architects focused on creating an “inner sanctum” for players — a sanctuary — with all the latest amenities (none of which can be disclosed at this point). They also took advantage of the Southern California climate, creating an interior courtyard that opens to the sky above so players can experience the sun and not feel like they’re always inside, he said.

The facility also was designed with several sustainable features to achieve LEED Gold standards for energy savings.

All of the elements circle back to the team’s storied history, including a display of each championship trophy in the window of Buss’ office, looking down on the court. The building is not about luxury, but about comfort for the players and a nod to those who came before, the architects said.

“They have this great history, famous players,” Meyer said. “They really wanted to express that legacy in this headquarters.”