Winter is over, though perhaps most NBA fans feel as if it’s just beginning. After a midseason slump, the Oklahoma City Thunder have won 12 of their last 13 games They’re clinging to a slim but steady three-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs atop the otherwise chaotic Western Conference. (The Lakers are good now? The Nuggets can’t find their footing? The Rockets can’t even stand up?) The Thunder’s flirtation with vulnerability was fun, but the defending champions look as invincible now as they did during their 24-1 run to begin the season. So, now as then, with nothing to criticize in the Thunder’s basketball, we are compelled to discuss their character and vibes.

Reviews are usually poor. I myself celebrated the Spurs when they recorded a hat-trick of wins over the Thunder in December, simply for injecting intrigue into a season that already seemed decided. The Defector podcast Nothing But Respect recently featured a series of anti-Thunder guests; after discussing the idea that artists don’t like OKC with musician Will Anderson, a host announced, “next week, we will have a real, actual Thunder expert to defend his team’s values”. Most of the comments on that episode seemed unconvinced by Ringer staff writer Tyler Parker’s arguments.

Nitpicking a player or team who has pulled away from the pack is one of sports’ greatest pleasures. But, at the risk of antagonizing fellow artists, I have caught myself feeling endeared by members of the Thunder lately.

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It started with their star, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He is a somewhat mechanically brilliant player, deadly in the count-on-it consistency of his midrange jumper. But this season, he has added a step-back three-pointer to his arsenal, with which he produces more viscerally awesome moments than ever before. In a neck-and-neck game on 9 March against the Nuggets, whose Nikola Jokić is arguably the only player in the world better than Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP hit one such three with 14 seconds left to seemingly ice the game. His teammate Jaylin Williams committed a foolish foul as Jokić answered with a three of his own, letting the Nuggets tie the game. In one universe, that play would make its way into basketball fail compilations, the beginning of a Thunder choke. In this universe, Gilgeous-Alexander simply drained one more three-pointer and put the game to bed for real.

A reporter later asked Gilgeous-Alexander if he knew what he was going to do before shooting those marvelous three-pointers. “I have answers to the test, I just have to see the questions first,” he responded.

As Harry Krinsky pointed out on Nothing But Respect, Gilgeous-Alexander has an unfortunate habit of talking in Instagram captions. Still, some transparent aura-farming after authoring one of the brightest highlights of the season is hardly unrelatable. (I regret to say that if in the same situation, the words “in the zone” probably would have passed through my lips.) Another of Gilgeous-Alexander’s most salient personality traits is his love for fashion; he has arrived for games wearing a mustard-colored leather suit and, more recently, a fur coat encircling his head. And Gilgeous-Alexander is hardly the only goofball on the Thunder. OKC frequently do their on-court interviews in groups, as if any given player needs a buddy at all times.

This is, undeniably, quite cringeworthy. And yet it feels something like refreshing for male athletes to bear their authentic selves and show a truth that is merely awkward and not ugly.

Next to Bryce Harper doing a military salute after hitting a home run at the World Baseball Classic, against Venezuela, clothes are a lovely discussion topic. The Thunder recently declined a visit to the White House – not in the strongest terms, citing a “timing issue”, but they did decline it, unlike the US men’s hockey team. (They also didn’t laugh at a quip about their female counterparts on a call with the president.)

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And it’s not like no other top NBA teams grate. The Boston Celtics are the best story in the league right now, but do not let the romance of Jayson Tatum’s comeback make you forget that, at their best, the Celtics make an agonizing parody of analytics in how much they rely on the three-pointer. Jokić has made a habit lately of lying atop opposing players and squashing them to the ground. Victor Wembanyama can be a little too sanctimonious in his rose-tinted view of how the Spurs play basketball. The Detroit Pistons play defense as physically as the Thunder, or any other team in the league. The Lakers are the Lakers.

So it’s hardly the worst thing in the world that the best basketball team is a little bland and corny off the court and a little bloodless on it. There are things to admire, too. Gilgeous-Alexander gifted his teammates Rolex watches after winning MVP last year. The fuel for the Thunder’s vaunted defense is little more than trying incredibly hard, amusingly seen recently when Alex Caruso tried to block a shot with his shoe. (Refs rewarded his creativity with a tech. Cowards.) It is a nice thought that with such common currency as authenticity and effort, the rest of us could excel similarly. Oklahoma City’s quirks will continue to feed animosity for as long as they remain great, but when winter comes for them in earnest, I bet they’ll feel the warmth of more fans.