Despite leading the Atlanta Hawks by eight points before the break on Friday, Oklahoma City Thunder made a drastic adjustment in the second half: they completely changed their uniforms.
Because of a flaw in the uniform selection and approval process, the Thunder and Hawks played the first half using extremely similar colors, the Hawks in their red “icon” uniforms and Thunder in their alternating orange “phrases”.
On television, the combination was especially bad.
The league requested a shirt change, said a Thunder spokesman. The Hawks only had their red “icon” t-shirts on the trip, so Thunder changed to white in the second half.
With teams having multiple combinations and alternatives to wear, and no longer observing the traditional pattern of white and color of the road, the uniform selection process is done before the season for the entire schedule using an entry system called LockerVision. The home team chooses first, then the road team.
The league rechecks all combinations and approves them, but the Thunder and Hawks mistakenly escaped the approval process, according to a league spokesman.
Usually, when there are close contrasts, like the red-orange problem with OKC and Atlanta, the league detects and corrects it before it happens. According to a league source, this is the first time in more than 4,000 games that this has happened since the system was introduced.
There were other notable flaws in the basketball wardrobe, such as the Argentine women’s team losing a game at the 2019 Pan American Games because their players were wearing the wrong shirts. At the 2002 NIT, Syracuse and South Carolina appeared wearing white uniforms, with Syracuse changing clothes in the first half and wearing orange tops and white shorts.