First of all, we gotta give a shout out to our good friend Ridiculous Scott over at Ridiculous Upside for cluing us in to this news earlier today (Did you like that Scott? FYI...I'm never going to refer to you on this site again without attaching the "Ridiculous" moniker before Scott) that Nate Tibbetts has been named the Head Coach of the Thunder owned D-League affiliate, Tulsa 66ers. So Nate Tibbetts, yeah, he's the new head coach of the Tulsa 66ers, and unless you are a hardcore D-League fan, you probably have no idea who this is. As a fairly new fan of the D-League, I'm not tremendously knowledgeable about him either, but I did a little digging so I could give you a bit more information on the guy, and try to figure out the reasons behind his hiring.

For the past two seasons, Nate has been the head coach of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, and the previous two years he was their assistant head coach. During his tenure in Sioux Falls, the Skyforce finished with a 53-47 record to go along with 1 playoff appearance. Before that he spent four seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Sioux Falls and helped to lead the Cougers to a 92-44 overall record along with two trips to the NAIA Division II Championships, and 1 final four appearance in said tournament. He also graduated from the University of South Dakota, so one thing you can gleam from this initial paragraph is that the guy has been ingrained in the Dakota area for quite some time, and it was not likely an easy task to convince him to make a change. Perhaps the Thunder have some long term plans they decided to share with Nate in an effort to entice him to make a change and leave the area he's been in for many years.

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So maybe you saw my little rant of a fanpost over at Ridiculous Upside the other day, which basically called in to question why the D-League Uniforms are so mundane. Anyway, amidst the commenting of that thread I was reminded of a rumor I heard earlier this season regarding the Tulsa 66ers and a possible name and color change. This of course was all brought about by the Oklahoma City Thunder's purchase of the Tulsa D-League Franchise earlier this season. The rumor that I heard was that perhaps they would try to connect the two teams in the form of colors, logo, and nicknames. The NBA Squad is called Thunder, and thus the D-League squad was to be nicknamed what happens shortly before Thunder...Lightning. It's pretty cool when you think about it, Lightning comes before Thunder, and a developing player can be a member of the Lightning before getting the call up to the Thunder. Now, I'm not the greatest graphic artist in the world, but I took a shot at what a quick logo and uniform set could look like.

Now I really don't know if they'd seriously alter the OKC logo into a D-League logo, but from the rumor I heard earlier this year, thats what I was made to believe. Let's not forget, a rumor is just a rumor, and who knows if any of this will ever see the light of day. Anyway, I modified the Thunder logo to include the word Tulsa, instead of OKC, and removed the lines under the logo, and incorperated a few subtle Lightning bolts. It may look like a simple mod, but just so you know, I spent a few hours on that damn thing, because it wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. The uniforms however where pretty easy because I found a blank template over at Chris Creamers Sports Logos. I filled in what I think the colors should be as well as wordmarks, logo's, name, and numbers. I've included Home and Away uniforms, and the only thing that I didn't have time to do was change "Tulsa" to "Lightning" on the home uniforms. Hey, its getting late, and you can get the basic idea anyway.

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The NBA season is beginning to wind down, and although the Thunder have no shot at the playoffs, perhaps they should use their remaining time wisely, and take a look at a few Tulsa 66ers who could have a future in Oklahoma City. There are three guys in Tulsa right now who are making a huge impact for the 66ers, and helping them compete in / win games they otherwise wouldn't have had much of a shot in, during the earlier part of the season. Both the NBA and NBDL seasons are winding down to a close, and the Thunder are going to have to start looking at who stays, who goes, and of course, who replaces them. I have put together a few fella's who are, at least, deserving of a look.

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In case you missed my live blog from the Tulsa 66ers game on Sunday afternoon, The Tulsa 66ers have acquired the #4 overall pick from the 2004 NBA Draft, Shaun Livingston. Shaun Livingston is a 6'7" Point Guard who's career took a sharp downward turn when he tore 3 of the 4 ligaments in his left knee while attempting a layup off of a steal in a 2007 game against Charlotte. If you care to watch the horrific video of the injury, just head over to youtube and search for "Shaun Livingston Injury" and it'll be at the top of the list. His first attempt (which was a failure) at an NBA comeback came earlier this season as he made 4 appearances for the Miami Heat.

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I've got to be honest with you here and tell you I dropped the ball on getting you this story before it was actually implemented. I was going to break this story quite a long while back, but with the move to SBNation and a greater focus on improving the quality of the blog, I got a little blogged down, so to speak. Anyway, did you know the Tulsa 66ers are the playing the role of "Guinea pig" for the NBA in its testing of the popular (football) action cam? If you are a football fan, you've probably already seen it in action. Action Cam is the camera that hovers above the playing field, suspended in mid-air by multiple guide wires. The camera is very versatile and gives you a view of the action that was impossible before its implementation. The NFL uses this camera a lot for getting close shots of the action from behind the offense, to get closeups of teams in the huddle, and also a myriad of other angles that were not possible before action cam.

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