Oklahoma City Thunder renames D-League team ‘Blue’

The Oklahoma City Thunder announced Wednesday that its D-League team will be called the Blue.

No, seriously. The Blue. The Oklahoma City Blue.

In July, it was reported that the Thunder would move the Tulsa 66ers to Oklahoma City for the 2014-15 season when the team’s home arena, the SpiritBank Event Center, was made unavailable by the arena’s owner.

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And with the move comes a name change. The Blue. The logo for the new team looks like a low-rent knockoff of the Thunder’s already low-rent logo.

The Thunder’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, Brian Byrnes, broke into a chorus of first-class corporate speak to explain the decision in the team’s official 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.“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.”"

Unfortunately they apparently weren’t focused on the development of a name that isn’t really lame.

The Blue open their season Nov. 14 against the Maine Red Claws and will play the bulk of their home games at Cox Convention Center, with four games to be played at the Thunder’s home arena, the Chesapeake Energy Arena.