NBA Officials Seize Thunder T-Shirts from Retailer - KTUL.com - Tulsa, Oklahoma - News, Weather & Sports

Amidst the OKC Thunder's incredible run, an Oklahoma City metro retailer had Thunder-branded merchandise seized by NBA officials on Wednesday.

The staff at Hi-Performance on North May Avenue said they were surprised when agents came in the store on Wednesday and took all of its Thunder T-shirts.

"They just came in and kind of bum rushed us," employee Chadd Hook said. "Six guys came, one was Homeland Security, and his gun was exposed. The others said they were N-B-A officials. They said they were going to confiscate all our shirts now or sue us."

The store allowed local artists to create their own Thunder-inspired shirts, and the store agreed to sell them.

"As a store owner who sells other sporting goods," said owner Jake Shelton, "I was careful to make sure we didn't sell anything that had a logo, a trademarked image, or players' names or anything like that. So I was confused about why they were here."

Shelton said their artists were using different colors.

While they loaded up a stack of shirts, Hook said that the agents gave him a letter that basically says the NBA owns all the images on the material they were selling including the word "Thunder" and the use of the Thunder's trademark blue and orange colors.

Attorney David Slane is not representing them but said, "The Federal law says that you're not allowed to counterfeit something or make an identical reproduction of it or something that is indistguishdable."

Slane acknowledged that Federal agents do have the right to seize what they consider evidence of a crime, but he did not believe that the investigators assigned to Hi-Performance should have seized that particular property.

Darren Huffer of is another T-shirt seller.

"Every Thunder fan that I've seen that's brought one of our shirts has been wearing a licensed Thunder shirt, so they are spending money with them and us," Huffer said, "so we're not hurting a multi-billion-dollar corporation."

Sister CNN affiliate KFOR was unable to reach NBA investigators by phone for comment.

[Source: CNN affiliate KFOR's reporter La'Tasha Givens]