Yesterday, Zach Lowe of Grantland ranked the 30 NBA team logos. The mark of our beloved orange, light blue, dark blue, yellow, and I guess occasionally white Oklahoma City Thunder came in dead last.
Like, what is this? Thunder higher-ups hoped fans would think of two things when they heard the name — storms and rampaging bison — but they didn’t want to commit visually in either direction. A stormy logo might marginalize the bison, a key symbol for local Native Americans, and the staid Thunder thought it would be silly to have mature adults wear jerseys with animals on them. “We didn’t feel like having professional players represented by [an] animal was where we wanted to be,” says Brian Byrnes, the team’s senior vice-president for sales and marketing. Besides, Byrnes says, “the bull was already taken.”
Straddling the fence resulted in this vanilla mishmash. “It might be the best D-League logo ever made,” says Tom O’Grady, who served as the NBA’s first creative director before leaving to found Gameplan Creative, a Chicago-based branding consultancy. Team officials say the shield hints at a leader charging into battle, and that the upward rising “bolts,” which don’t look like bolts at all, symbolize a young franchise growing up.
Wow. Burn. “Best D-League logo ever made?” What did the D-League do to piss off Tom O’Grady?
I’m not very surprised that OKC’s logo was ranked dead last. Not to be the guy who liked the band first, but I’ve always thought the Thunder logo sucked. Actually, screw that. I am going to be that guy. I was actually the first person in the world to not like the Oklahoma City Thunder logo. Well, at least the first person to do so publicly.
Here’s the proof:
Yep, I’m quite the Internet hot-shot, huh? Not only did I leak the Thunder logo four days before it was unveiled to a very disappointed world, but I also called it “underwhelming.” That’s brilliant analysis because it’s true! OKC fans were expecting something with a bison riding lightning bolts through a multi-vortex maxi grinder while swinging Thor’s hammer. Instead we had a five color piece of junk made in Microsoft Word dumped on us.
The good news about the bad logo is that it will likely be changed sometime soon:
No team has worse art, top to bottom, and Nike will push for an overhaul once it replaces Adidas as the league’s apparel partner in 2017. Nike and the Thunder are already talking, and the Thunder “haven’t ruled out” a more explicit weather-related secondary mark, Byrnes says.
Bad news: Oklahoma City seems locked into the shield motif and likely won’t replace it with a bison — or anything else. “To some extent, we are committed to the idea we have,” Byrnes says. “But we would not dismiss good feedback, particularly from Nike. We’re open to modernizing the logo, but we don’t have an appetite to overhaul it.”
“Noooooo!!!!” That has to be what this girl is thinking right now.
Anyway, I hope Zac Lowe was right and Nike is now working with the Thunder Ministry of Propaganda to design a new logo. I think they should embrace the whole weather angle, add huge lightning bolts to the logo, and use a green, yellow, orange and red color scheme that mimics Doppler radar. In fact, Nike could use their technology to create uniforms that have changing Doppler radar weather patterns that move around like Rorschach’s mask in The Watchmen. They could also hire Gary England to replace Rumble. Who wouldn’t go for that?
Yeah, it’s ugly. Looks like a kid version of a better logo. Why no lightning bolts, or clouds, red dirt red instead of orange…ANYTHING is better than what we got.
I am still surprised they went with orange. I had a boss who wouldn’t let us sponsor one of the playoff game shirts because it was orange. Red and Orange are already taken in this great state, they should have picked a different secondary color.
The “Thunder Orange” is the color you get when you mix the orange and red of the University Sports teams. Crafty, huh?
Really? Like the timberwolves, the heat or the pelicans is better. look at the cavaliers logo and it looks like testacle that got caught in a basketball rim
Three words: Stuffed Weather Dongs
Winning and relevance trump all. If you win and/or are relevant no one gives a ratz azz about your logo. The Lakers typically are ranked high in these polls for their uniforms/logo/yada, but for now they aren’t relevant and I don’t see the great uni’s and logo being a saving grace for laker fans. Earlier commenter talked about how bad the Cav’s logo is, but who cares? They were in the finals and they have Lebron. Great logo’s and uniforms are just like statistics, they don’t matter if you don’t win. For those who say “we can’t we have both”?-I agree but not going to stress over the logo.
Let’s put this in Deadspin style:
Oklahoma Sports Logos, Ranked:
1. Oklahoma Sooners
2. Tulsa Drillers
3. Oklahoma State Cowboys
4. Oklahoma City Dodgers
5. Tulsa Roughnecks (formerly the logo of the Oklahoma City Barons)
6. Oklahoma City Energy
7. Tulsa Oilers
8. Oklahoma City Thunder
9. Being Hit by a Car
10. Oklahoma City Blue
In the spirit of Deadspin, +1
Also would have accepted “hammers to face” at No. 9.
I always thought the logo had a Jetsons vibe to it. Like someone in the 1960’s was drawing what they thought would be a cool logo in 2010… on a pizza box… after someone with a hangover threw up on it.
Who is this Zac Lowe and why does his opinion even matter? I’m happy the Thunder didn’t go with some suckass animal. I mean, they could have gone with a catfish or a rattlesnake, catching them is like a state sport.
Zach Lowe is the head NBA writer at Grantland and one of the most well-respected writers covering the NBA. His opinion matters to a lot of NBA fans.
So, we have Rob, Chad, and Zac…the Lost Lowe.
*Zach…yep. The Lost Lowe.
Rattlers or copperheads would be cool… I don’t think something similar is already taken in basketball? Wouldn’t really know tho…
I totally forgot about Serge and a previous TLO article when thinking (or a subconscious premise) snakes would be an interesting fit for a mascot… While Serge is around… it should be the anacondas?
I’ve always thought that “Executioners” would an excellent name for an Oklahoma sports team. Double entendre intended.
Perhaps that’s a triple entendre? I’ll leave that to someone who isn’t dim like me to decide.
“The Executioners face the Bullets in a killer Friday night NBA matchup…”
Sweeetttt, baaaaybeeeeee!
In 06-07 (?) when they requested fan submissions for a mascot/logo, I submitted a bison version of the Norse God Thor. Shield, hammer, horns, the works. I even sent in photos of a small plastic shield and hammer. They could merchandise the stuff and bang them together during the Thunderclap. I still have hopes that they will incorporate this.
Great idea. As i stated earlier, the Thunder may not be the best logo but it is not the worst. Improvement is always good as long as it is not change for change sake.
The best part will be in 2017 when the new logo is unveiled and the current one is considered “retro” even though it debuted less than a decade earlier.
You guys are harping on the logo. I’m still amazed that Oklahoma was able to snare a pro league team to begin with.
Also, Wiki says the colors are blue, red, yellow and dark blue.
Since everybody knows that Wiki is really Skynet, the color shall henceforth be red and not orange.
I have to wonder if the designer who created it was chomping down a 2 a.m. bag of Doritos when it was created, because there’s not a lot in it that says “basketball.”
I’m sure the fragile egos at Ackerman-McQueen will be “thrilled” to work with Nike on a redesign. And by “thrilled,” I mean squirming in their pansy little seats because someone dare criticizes their work. I hope the Nike folks like chairs thrown at them, because that’s what they may get.