Reflection to avoid class load

I was reading through the PerfMark code and saw a comment about avoid an accidental class load through using reflection in a commit:

if (Boolean.getBoolean("io.perfmark.PerfMark.debug")) {
-          Logger.getLogger(PerfMark.class.getName()).log(Level.FINE, "Error during PerfMark.<clinit>", err);
+          // We need to be careful here, as it's easy to accidentally cause a class load.  Logger is loaded
+          // reflectively to avoid accidentally pulling it in.
+          // TODO(carl-mastrangelo): Maybe make this load SLF4J instead?
+          Class<?> logClass = Class.forName("java.util.logging.Logger");
+          Object logger = logClass.getMethod("getLogger", String.class).invoke(null, PerfMark.class.getName());
..
}

I don't quite understand which class is prevented from being accidentally loaded here. According to Class#forName will cause the logger class to be loaded. From my understanding, the class will only be loaded if the enclosing if condition is true. Or is this the point I am missing?

Commit with more context is here: https://github.com/perfmark/perfmark/commit/4f87fb72c2077df6ade958b524d6d217766c9f93#diff-f9fdc8ad347ee9aa7a11a5259d5ab41c81e84c0ff375de17faebe7625cf50fb5R116

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I ran the part with the if block and set a breakpoint on static and non-static fields in the Logger class. It hit the breakpoint only when the call was executed irregardless of using reflection or direct. When the if condition was false, no logger was loaded in any case.