NBA 2K League season two expansion team T-Wolves Gaming has revealed its logo and team branding identity in a video released across its social media channels:
T-Wolves Gaming on Twitter
WE’VE ARRIVED, @NBA2KLeague 🐺 x 🎮 https://t.co/ksqadUmsbx
The T-Wolves also released a video featuring Rodney Richardson of RARE Designs, who designed the logo:
T-Wolves Gaming on Twitter
The vision behind the T-Wolves Gaming logo 🔥 https://t.co/dIiAuBvCv4
“Up until this point it was an idea,” Minnesota Timberwolves & Lynx Chief Strategy Officer Ted Johnson told DIMER. “We’re starting to see this idea become a reality.”
The franchise had worked with Richardson while rebranding the Timberwolves and Lynx nearly a year before, and his experience with the franchise showed itself in the design of the new logo. The T-Wolves decided to take a fresh look at the history and legacy of their market, and Richardson devised the sharp wolf mask, geared towards a younger, more cosmopolitan demographic.
“It’s a business, but it’s about having fun, too,” said Johnson.
The T-Wolves also issued several renderings of a future training center:
T-Wolves Gaming on Twitter
renderings of the new digs are looking real nice 👀 https://t.co/MS9y2O85xP
Dimensional Innovations (Overland Park, Kansas) and Perkins + Will (Denver, Colorado) are joining forces to create the 3,000 square-foot T-Wolves Gaming facility, which the team hopes to open in time for the season. Johnson indicated that the T-Wolves Gaming facility looks to replicate the success of the franchise’s NBA/WNBA facility, which garnered praise around the league and even from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
“We’re looking to raise the bar and really become a gold standard for the league,” Johnson said.
The Timberwolves nearly joined the NBA 2K League among the league’s original crop of franchises, but instead followed the league closely throughout the first season. Their observations from the first season will help the team institute best practices early on, whereas the inaugural teams essentially had to figure things out on the fly.
“We walked into this a little bit better informed than other teams,” said Johnson. “Other teams had to make quick decisions and build the airplane as they were flying it.”
Shawn Vilvens, the team’s general manager and head coach, praised the designers for reaching out about their plans and expressed his excitement for the facility.
“We’ll review film and scout players, scout teams. We’ll have an area to put into practice our offense, our sets, we’ll have an area to review those things… we’ll have a kitchenette… really everything you could possibly want except a mattress,” Vilvens said.
That’s all right: the team’s next priority is finding a place for the players to live, and they’ve reached out to current teams to figure out which method of accommodation—house, apartments, etc—is best.
Both Johnson and Vilvens highlighted the facility’s location as an optimal winning environment. The T-Wolves Gaming space will be located in the Mayo Clinic Square, right alongside the facilities for the Timberwolves and Lynx. Both expect a measure of basketball syncretism: with the NBA and WNBA organizations in the building, the franchise expects T-Wolves Gaming players to learn from them and use the advantages such close proximity offers.
The team acquired HoodBC from Cavs Legion in exchange for the third overall pick in the NBA 2K League expansion draft. They then selected two-way power forward iFeast with the sixth overall selection in the expansion draft, rebuffing the offer of a first-round pick from his original team, 76ers GC. Minnesota hired Vilvens, a college basketball coach at Cincinnati Christian University, as its GM and Head Coach in late October.
