The Minnesota Timberwolves Got Their Name On This Day In 1987

The Minneapolis Lakers played in Minnesota from 1947 until 1960, when they left to become the Los Angeles Lakers. It would be 29 years before another NBA team would take the floor as a home team in Minnesota.

In anticipation of the NBA granting Minnesota an expansion team, the franchise held a 'name the team' contest which spawned over 6,000 entries and just under 1,300 unique names before being narrowed down to two: 'Polars' and 'Timberwolves.'

To decide which name to go with, the team sent the question to 842 city councils throughout Minnesota. They decided by a fairly overwhelming margin to go with "Timberwolves," and the rest is history.

Now, about that history. It's admittedly... not great. As of March, 2021, the Timberwolves are not just the all-time worst team in NBA history... their winning percentage of .393 pits them as the worst team in all of professional sports history.

The Wolves have had just nine winning seasons and only two since 2005. The team has won just two playoff series in franchise history, both coming in the 2003-04 season when the Wolves defeated the Nuggets and Kings before bowing out to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.

However, the Wolves may be on an upswing. The team made the playoffs last season after winning a play-in round game against the Clippers at Target Center before ultimately falling to the Memphis Grizzlies in the opening round of the traditional NBA playoffs.