It looks like the NBA Store jumped the gun yet again. For a brief period on Friday evening, a “Beat the Heat” Oklahoma City Thunder T-shirt (pictured above) was being sold on NBA.com. If you look carefully, you’ll notice an NBA Finals logo at the bottom of the shirt.
Even though the Thunder have already clinched a spot in the Finals, the problem is their opponent hasn’t been determined. The Heat and Celtics play Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday, so there’s no point for Thunder fans to already concentrate on beating the Heat.
For more context, it looks like the NBA Store has been offering shirts that target the Thunder’s specific opponents throughout the playoffs. In a Google cache of the NBA store URL offering the shirt (the link no longer works), the title of the shirt is “adidas Oklahoma City Thunder BEAT LA T-Shirt.” Take a look below:
The LA Lakers were the Thunder’s opponent in the Western Conference semifinals. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but this isn’t even the NBA Store’s biggest blunder of the year. They need to watch themselves a lot more closely.
UPDATE: According to Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld, the Celtics were using the shirts as motivation.
H/T The NBA Mistress via Black Sports Online
