MINNEAPOLIS — So many things were going through Alex Rodriguez’s head in the days and weeks after he teamed with Marc Lore to buy the Minnesota Timberwolves for $1.5 billion.He thought about how to use his years of experience as a baseball superstar to connect with the players and help them develop as professionals. He thought about the trades and signings that would have to happen to turn a long-struggling team into a contender in the Western Conference. He thought about all the work that had to be done to address the team’s aging arena and bring the franchise into the modern era.The more and more Rodriguez and Lore met with fans and listened to what was important to them, the clearer the priority list became.“It followed with polling the fans, talking to the fans and the two things that kept coming back were Kevin Garnett and rebranding the uniform,” Rodriguez said. “Everywhere we went, they wanted a new uniform.”That anecdotal evidence was validated on Sunday when the Timberwolves unveiled their new logo and uniforms in a full-scale rebranding. More than 7,000 fans shuffled into Target Center on a warm weekend afternoon to get their first up-close glimpse of the new look.It was the culmination of a three-year process aimed at threading the needle for a fan base that was begging for the nostalgia of days gone by, yet also offering some reinvention. They ditched the navy, white and Aurora green color palette, reintroduced the ultra-popular black tree theme for their statement edition and brought back the more vibrant blue and white jerseys that ushered the Wolves into the NBA back in 1989.“The team is the fans’ team,” Rodriguez said. “This is what the fans wanted.”Lore and Rodriguez were met with skepticism by Wolves fans when they first announced in 2021 their intention to buy the team, a collective side-eye headed their way as outsiders who never lived in Minnesota. Their strategy for countering that? Listen to what fans want and give it to them when they can.What the two partners heard over and over again from nearly the moment they joined the ownership group were pleas to give the Wolves’ look a fresh coat of paint.“They’re incredibly focused on fan feedback and what the fans want,” Mike Grahl, the Wolves’ chief marketing officer, said. “And ever since day one when they stepped into the Twin Cities, they were just constantly wanting to understand what fans were feeling and what they were looking for and wanting.”It became clear very early on that the fans wanted a new look that hearkened back to the old days. That may seem counterintuitive for a franchise that was, for the first 35 years of its existence, one of the least successful teams in American sports. It also spoke to a dissatisfaction with the uninspired version the team had been wearing lately, a look that started with the doomed Tom Thibodeau-Jimmy Butler-led team and now felt undeserving of the Anthony Edwards era.The most recent rebrand, a uniform set that was defined by a unique stripe across the chest and darkened shoulders, felt a little flat amid the electricity and success of the last five seasons.“I think just over time it never really necessarily grabbed fans in a way that was sustainable over a long, long period of time,” said Grahl, who joined the organization after that design was adopted.