Ranking the Thunder’s all-time uniforms, from best to worst
Sarah Rodriguez OKLAHOMA CITY — The first time Russell Westbrook played in a Thunder uniform it was black and white.
Black jersey with “Oklahoma City” in white letters. Black shorts with white stripes. It was a simple Summer League look, and in hindsight a little ironic. When the Thunder debuted official colors, there were five of them — blue, navy blue, yellow, orange and white — and they’ve added to the palette since.
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The Thunder have sported Sunset orange and turquoise and gray. They’ve added alternate logos and “sound wave” stripes and multiple themed jerseys, including one for the upcoming season that pays tribute to a dark chapter in Oklahoma City history — and to the uplifting recovery that followed it.
Under the NBA’s contract with Nike, each team gets at least one updated uniform each season, so the Thunder’s roster of looks has expanded — with mixed results — and should continue to.
With so much change happening in Oklahoma City — Westbrook is gone, replaced in a roster overhaul by another fashion-forward point guard, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — now seems like a good time to look at what’s worked and what hasn’t in 11 years of Thunder basketball style.
It’s just one man’s opinion, but here’s a glance at each Thunder look, ranked best to worst (note that this ranking excludes Summer League jerseys and one-time Christmas Day alternates):
Blue Statement uniform
It was at the time of its release the most daring Thunder uniform yet, and it remains the best. Not every big fashion swing has paid off in OKC, but the now-retired navy blue statement jersey was bold in design and brilliant in execution. The sound-wave effect on the back and the jagged, broken “OKC” were meant to evoke the rumble of thunder and the roar of the fans from Loud City, and no Oklahoma City uniform has done a better job of illustrating the concept of a force of nature as a team name.
Turquoise City
While the first Statement jersey highlighted the concept of Thunder, this look was an homage to Oklahoma, specifically its Native American heritage. The turquoise color represented both the 11th anniversary stone — the Thunder wore them during their 11th season in OKC — and the native color of friendship. The waistband was decorated with a pattern derived from a traditional Native American sash. The look was the creation of Nike’s Carson Brown, himself a Native American, who said when the uniforms were released that they were designed to be “respectful and not appropriating any specific native culture or tribe, to make it encompass everything.”
Adidas Sunset
The Thunder’s first-ever orange uniform remains, perhaps, its best. The bold navy blue “OKC” across the front was a game-changer for a franchise that had been mostly married to “Thunder” or “Oklahoma City.” They hold historic significance, too, as the uniforms the Thunder wore on the day Westbrook clinched the NBA’s single-season triple-double record and beat Denver with a 3-pointer at the buzzer. This kit also comes with some controversy, since some fans thought it chose sides in the heated Oklahoma-Oklahoma State rivalry. The Sooners wear crimson and cream, the Cowboys orange and black. It’s part of the reason, in house, orange Thunder uniforms are referred to exclusively as “sunset,” a color the team will insist is separate from orange. Whatever you call it, it looks great.
City Memorial
The new dark gray uniform was designed in conjunction with the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. It’s meant to “embody the spirit of resilience and remembrance to pay respect to the lives lost and all those impacted by” the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. If you visited the outdoor memorial in OKC, you’ll be struck immediately by the way the uniform evokes it, both in the color scheme and the small details. In the vents of the shorts are the times 9:01 and 9:03, reflecting the moment of innocence before the bombing and the moment the city pulled together after it, respectively. The famous Survivor Tree is represented in bright colors on the waistband of the shorts, a strong contrast to the dark uniform and representative of the hope that came from the city’s darkest day.
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There are two demerits for a conceptually powerful uniform. First, the two-tiered “Oklahoma City” across the chest muddles every design, and this is no exception. And second, more than on any other Thunder uniform, the garish advertising patch for Love’s Travel Stops stands out here. It’s too stark a contrast for a uniform that reflects a somber event, and Love’s would be smart to allow some tweaks, perhaps a monochromatic gold logo to match the rest of the jersey trim.
Orange Statement
It’s hard to rank the upcoming season’s Sunset (“orange”) uniforms in part because the Thunder haven’t worn them yet and have unveiled only photos of the front. But we’re starting them in a strong position based on the assumption that they’re borrowing heavily from the navy blue Statement uniforms of the past two seasons. The jagged “OKC” is there across the front, and publicity photos indicate at least some hint of the sound wave striping on the back. Assuming these are as bold in orange as the old Statement uniforms were in blue, it almost makes up for retiring the Thunder’s best-ever uniform. Almost.
New Icon
Since the franchise’s debut in 2008, the team’s traditional blue uniform has had “Oklahoma” above “City” on the chest above the number. It’s a cumbersome look, a stark contrast to the clean “OKC” that appears on many of the team’s best-looking jerseys. This season, that changes for the first time. The blue uniform now has “Thunder” across the chest, with “OKC” on the waistband of the shorts. It’s a significant upgrade, even as it mucks up the white uniform. But we’ll get to that.
Classic White/Association
The team’s first home uniform — updated and tweaked in 2017 as Nike’s new “Icon” set — was the better of its initial offerings thanks mostly to having “Thunder” across the chest, a much more visually appealing branding than “Oklahoma City” on the blue uniforms. Other than that, there wasn’t much to get excited about here. The shield logo on the shorts didn’t seem especially fresh when the team debuted and looks less so now, and the color scheme was slightly evocative of the Knicks, lacking the kind of bold approach it would be nice to see a new franchise take. These aren’t bad, but they are safe.
Earned Sunset
The orange uniforms the Thunder wore last season were a Nike twist on the original Adidas Sunset. Most of the details were similar, down to the player name under the jersey number on the back. The most significant difference: The OKC across the front was in the same jagged, Thunder-rattled style as the past two Statement edition uniforms: last season’s navy and this season’s sunset. But there’s a points deduction here for being so derivative of a previous uniform — and for suffering in comparison to the new orange Statements.
New Association
It’s hard to stress this enough: “Oklahoma City” never looks as striking stacked above a number as “Thunder” or “OKC” can. Maybe someday the Thunder will try Oklahoma above the number and city below and see what that produces. But the two words on top of one another will always dock a jersey at least a couple of spots in the rankings. Give the new white uniforms this much: The outlining of the “Oklahoma City” at least gives it some depth and makes it pop, and the state of Oklahoma at the waistband here is a nice touch. It’s at least a significant improvement over…
Classic Blue/Icon
…this mess. The original road blues got a refresh in 2017 as OKC’s first Icon uniform by Nike, but the changes were minimal and did little to clean up the bland, overcrowded front created by the “Oklahoma City” above the number. This season’s city jersey is the closest a uniform has come to making it work, and even there it’s problematic.
Navy alternate
They were pretty awful in the moment, and they haven’t aged well. But OKC’s first navy blue alternate uniforms weren’t dull. Having “Thunder” down the front of the jersey vertically was a daring decision. It fell flat, but OKC deserves credit for the effort here. The Thunder fans who swear by these uniforms — and there are many — probably were drawn to the risk taking. And even if the look wasn’t successful, maybe it paved the way for the more adventurous styles that have followed in the Nike years.
White Sleeved
It’s no secret why Adidas tried so hard to make sleeves happen. The thought was the fans might be more inclined to wear short-sleeved jerseys in public than the sleeveless ones the players wear on the court. But the look was a failure, even if no Thunder player took the bold step LeBron James once did of ripping the sleeves for added comfort. The OKC shield on the chest here is a clean, dynamic look, far superior to anything with “Oklahoma City” across the front. But the sleeves derail anything else that works.
Gray City
Blah. When the Thunder unveiled this look, reporters were cautioned that the uniforms would look better in person than they did in publicity photos. That might have been true, but they didn’t look good. The theory was that the Thunder’s assortment of team colors would pop against the gray base, but it didn’t work. And it didn’t help that these were released in the same season as the far more exciting Statement uniforms that top this list. This gray set was retired after one season, and nobody seems to have missed it.
(Top photo: Cooper Neill / Getty Images)
