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Minnesota Timberwolves Release New City Edition Uniform and Alternate Court

The City Edition threads are designed to celebrate “Minnesota’s vibrant creative community”

By Jack Borman
/ new

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The Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday afternoon unveiled their long-awaited City Edition uniform. The Wolves will dawn the jersey a total of 23 times this season, debuting in a matchup with the Miami Heat on Monday, November 21, before which the team will play a new introduction video.

The uniform features colors from throughout the Timberwolves’ jersey history, including the original branding, the “Kevin Love years” threads, and the team’s MSP City Edition jerseys from the 2019-20 season.

As part of their “Own Every Canvas” campaign, the franchise will debut its first-ever alternate court, featuring the different colors shown on the jersey.

Here is a full list of the City Edition home games during which Minnesota will wear the new jerseys and play on their colorful court:

As part of the team’s roll out, you can see a City Edition billboard above First Avenue, as well as six installations along I-35W. The Wolves will also launch billboards commissioned by local artists Moira Villiard (in Duluth), Megan Fick (in Mankato) and Madison Kelly (in Rochester).

Instant Reaction

Leading up to the release, we saw plenty of poor quality, pixelated jerseys make their rounds on Twitter. Understandably, those leaks got crushed by Wolves fans far and wide, including me.

Despite that, the players told media members multiple times in the wake of the release that the new jersey would look better than anticipated, and they were right. The new threads aren’t a home run by any means, but they aren’t the ones that were NBA fans across the country clowned ahead of the unveiling.

I can appreciate that the Wolves didn’t try to hit a home run after last year’s city editions were an A+.

2022 NBA Playoffs - Minnesota Timberwolves v Memphis Grizzlies Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images

It’s a tough thing to recreate new jerseys year-after-year with some tie to the city. From a marketing perspective, the whole process is a tough one. Unless it’s an easily recognizable idea, such as the Prince themed jersey, the story behind the jersey often falls on deaf ears and/or doesn’t impact the fan’s first view of the jersey after initially seeing it.

Final grade: I’d give the new jerseys a solid B.

Our friend Mike O’Hagan put it well shortly after the release in saying that jersey looks far better with the players wearing it than the renderings of the jersey did.

Those creating the uniform didn’t try to include St. Paul in the jersey (the Timberwolves are a Minneapolis team, by the way), didn’t use a monotone grey color that no one likes, and received praise from the players once the jersey became a reality, so it’s difficult to call the new threads a failure.

Fans can purchase new jerseys at the Timberwolves team store at Target Center and on the team’s website.

What grade would you give the Wolves for the new uniform?

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