RealGM

When Prince died in April 2016, Nike pitched the Wolves an alternate "city edition" jersey for the 2017-18 season that would honor him. The Wolves concluded it was too soon. They were already finalizing their 2017-18 jerseys, which would kick off a full-on rebrand -- new jerseys, new logo, new court, tweaked color scheme.

But they decided then to prioritize a Prince jersey for this season. They set aside some of Nike's other proposed Minnesota-centric motifs: jerseys paying homage to Bob Dylan, the Mississippi River (which runs through Minneapolis), and the original Minneapolis Lakers, Johnson says. (You might see some of those ideas down the road.)

In the spring of 2017, Cyrus Coleman, a product designer for Nike's basketball division, pitched the Wolves a mockup that looked very much like the final Prince jersey the team will unveil later today:

Minnesota's purple-on-purple look is new. This deep, very purply purple is all Minnesota's. The connection with Prince is obvious, and neither shade is bright enough to overwhelm or sear your eyes.

The Wolves were worried about the jerseys being too purple. They tried different color schemes, and a reversed look with dark purple lettering over a light purple background. There are outlandish designs based on some of Prince's more daring fashion ensembles on the cutting room floor.

"We experimented with some pretty crazy color floods and other things," Coleman says.

They retained at least some of the craziness. The right shoulder features a pattern designed to mimic the studding on one shoulder of the jackets Prince often wore around the 1984 release of "Purple Rain."

Coleman wanted to stitch actual studs onto the jerseys, but that proved too complicated, he says.

The font in the "Wolves" wordmark echoes the diagonal, jagged style of the lettering on the "Purple Rain" album cover.