As I'm sure you've heard and seen by now, the Thunder officially revealed the name and logo of the team's D-League franchise that's relocating to Oklahoma City this season.
It's the Oklahoma City Blue.
Yep, that's right. Blue. Not blue cheese, blue bells or blue balls. Blue... as in the color. Expect a Jenni Carlson article any day now that praises the name and logo for its creativity. I bet Berry Tramel is even scribbling down a list of possible nicknames to use in his future columns about the team. $20 bucks he calls them the "Baby Boomers."
The only thing more ridiculous than the name and logo – a vanilla monstrosity that's so bland that I won't post it on this obscure local social blog – is the Thunder's reasoning for it.
Via a team press release:
“Blue is one of our primary Thunder colors, but it has become more than just a color for us. It has come to represent the passion, loyalty and unity of our fans and our community in their support for our team. Our players wear it proudly on their uniforms, our fans sport Thunder blue shirts, Thunder blue flags fly across Oklahoma and our statewide Blue Alliance fan groups show their connection to our team and what it stands for,” said Brian Byrnes, Thunder senior vice president of Sales and Marketing.
“It is only fitting that our development team, which is such an integral part of our organization, be called the Blue to represent the cohesion it has with the Thunder. We think this new name accurately reflects the enhanced unity between the two teams, which are now geographically and philosophically aligned in Oklahoma City and focused on development.”
Oh, give us a fucking break. You know things are getting out of control when the Thunder Ministry of Propaganda starts buying and believing their own B.S.
Seriously, is anyone else troubled by this? The Thunder are the North Korea of NBA organizations when it comes to how they control their brand, messaging and treat the outside world, and now their D-league team name and logo looks like it was thought up by a prisoner in a North Korean labor camp. Before you know it, they're going to start referring to Thunder fans as comrades and flog and shame at halftime all the dissidents who are caught sitting down before the Thunder score their first points of the game.
There were a ton of funny tweets and one-liners that hit the Internet after the name and logo were announced. I would publish them on here, but that would break the vow I made about not showing the logo. Complex cataloged a few of them, as did former TLO padawan Royce at DailyThunder.com. Royce's post was pretty good. His brilliant lede to the name and logo report was:
LOL
Yeah, "LOL." That's the same thing the Thunder are going to say when they inform Royce that he's no longer sitting courtside next to that big dude from the Norman Transcript at every damn Thunder home game. I hope he likes standing in the concession lines in Loud City with the rest of us. If you see him, don't look the comrade directly in the eyes. Remember, The Thunder Ministry of Propaganda is always watching.
