Thunder’s Unique Culture: From Barking to Winning
In the world of professional sports, where seriousness often reigns supreme, the Oklahoma City Thunder have carved out a unique niche for themselves. Their approach is a blend of youthful exuberance and disciplined focus, a combination that has propelled them to the top of the NBA standings. At the heart of this culture is a quirky tradition that has become a hallmark of the team’s camaraderie: postgame barking.
Isaiah Hartenstein, the Thunder’s new center, made his debut with the team after missing the first 15 games of the season due to a broken left hand. In his first game back, he delivered an impressive performance with 13 points, 14 rebounds, three assists, and four blocks in a victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. This was precisely the kind of impact the Thunder had hoped for when they signed him to a three-year, $87 million deal in free agency over the summer.
However, Hartenstein’s initiation into the Thunder’s culture wasn’t complete until he participated in the team’s postgame tradition. “You know you gotta bark, right?” Thunder forward Jalen Williams reminded him after the final buzzer. As the interview with the team’s sideline reporter Nick Gallo concluded, Hartenstein grabbed the microphone and let out a “solid, little bark” as a rite of passage.
The barking tradition began last season, thanks to an impromptu bark from Jalen Williams, known as “JDub” to distinguish him from teammate Jaylin “J-Will” Williams. It has since become an audible expression of the Thunder’s mix of goofy personalities and serious work ethic. “Just assimilate into the culture, man,” Alex Caruso told ESPN. “It’s a long year. For us to get to where we want to be, we got to be one and together, and that’s part of it.”
The Thunder’s post-win interviews, often group affairs that end with barking, showcase the bond of a team that has emerged as an elite contender. Despite their success, the Thunder have remained true to their core organizational philosophies. Coach Mark Daigneault has managed to get one of the league’s youngest teams to consistently embrace the mundane aspects of the game, from skill work to game-plan detail, even as they experience success that could easily inflate egos.
“I think that’s why we’ve been able to accelerate our development,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN. “All those little things that go into winning, they mean a lot to us because of our competitiveness and what our common goal is as a group.”
The Thunder have made significant strides over the past two seasons, with win increases of 16 and 17 games, respectively. This progress is largely due to the development of 2022 lottery picks Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, who have proven themselves as star-caliber complements to Gilgeous-Alexander. Instead of trading for another star after last spring’s second-round playoff exit, Thunder general manager Sam Presti focused on acquiring top-notch role players who fit the Thunder’s culture and style of play. This led to the signing of Hartenstein and the acquisition of Caruso, who became the oldest player on the roster at 30.
As the season approaches its midpoint, the Thunder are on a 69-win pace, despite Holmgren playing in only 10 games before suffering a fractured pelvis. The Thunder have been especially dominant on defense, allowing a league-low 102.9 points per 100 possessions, 3.8 fewer than any other team. This defensive prowess will be tested in their upcoming game against the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers, who recently snapped Oklahoma City’s 15-game winning streak.
The combination of “youthful energy” and “discipline,” as Caruso describes it, has made a strong impression on the Thunder’s veteran offseason additions. “I think a lot of young guys focus too much on what’s going to happen in the future, but I feel like they’re really good at making sure we’re getting better each day,” said Hartenstein, the third-oldest player on the roster. “If you want to be a great team in this league, you have to focus on the boring stuff, the details. They do a great job in that.”
Coach Daigneault compares Gilgeous-Alexander’s evolution into one of the league’s best players to investing in a mutual fund. It’s not flashy, just steady gains compounding day after day. This analogy also applies to the Thunder’s journey from a rebuilding project to the clear-cut Western Conference favorite. Presti, armed with a historic stockpile of draft picks, refrained from making splashy trades to expedite the franchise’s return to relevance. Instead, the Thunder leaned into patience and player development, enduring two seasons near the bottom of the Western Conference standings before their progress became apparent.
“Those years when we weren’t the greatest, he always made sure that we were playing the game the right way and doing the stuff that would transfer once we became a better team,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And that’s carried over obviously with the more talent we get and the better we get.”
Gilgeous-Alexander has worked his way from intriguing prospect to All-Star to arguably the NBA’s most well-rounded superstar since arriving in Oklahoma City. Luguentz Dort, the only other player remaining from the 2019-20 roster, has transformed from an undrafted player with an ugly jumper to one of the league’s premier 3-and-D players, shooting 39.7% from 3-point range over the last season and a half. The rest of the roster has followed suit.
Rival executives and coaches widely believe that the Thunder are in the early stages of an extended window as a contender. However, Oklahoma City’s roster has been built without repeated swings in the upper half of the draft lottery. Chet Holmgren, selected second in the 2022 draft, is the lone single-digit draft pick on the roster and one of only four first-rounders in the Oklahoma City rotation. It’s a deep roster full of under-the-radar developmental success stories occupying key roles, the sort of team that is the result of tremendous scouting, which is still how Presti views himself at the core.
Isaiah Joe, a skinny, sharpshooting reserve guard whom Daigneault likes to refer to as one of the league’s toughest players pound-for-pound, was a waiver-wire pickup. Aaron Wiggins, a backup forward, was the No. 55 pick in 2021. They both earned new four-year contracts over the summer.
This summer’s major additions, Caruso and Hartenstein, fit into the ethos of grinders made good. Like Dort, they both had to toil in the G League to earn end-of-the-roster spots in the NBA and work their way into becoming essential role players. Caruso actually began his pro career with Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder’s G League affiliate, before leaving for a two-way deal with the Los Angeles Lakers. With a smile, Presti cited this as proof that he has made his share of talent evaluation errors.
Daigneault has attributed “an uncommon maturity” of a roster that still ranks as the league’s fourth youngest weighted by playing time, according to ESPN Research, as an essential element of Oklahoma City’s success. “They want to be a part of something bigger than themselves,” Daigneault said. “I think that’s one of the things that Sam’s nailed in this process. The types of people that we’ve brought in the door, regardless of whether they’re still here or they’re not, by and large, have been committed professionals that are ambitious, but they’re also willing to complete the team.
- Focus on the details
- Embrace the culture
- Commit to team goals
“So that’s been a huge starting point. And then you take those people, you put ’em in a stable environment, you educate ’em on the value of all the invisible things, and you hammer that over and over again. You hammer that environment over and over again. You hammer those messages over and over again and then you double down on the people that you have and just allow that to grow and compound.”
The Thunder’s group postgame interviews are cute demonstrations of the team’s chemistry, but they have also been fodder for criticism from a four-time NBA champion. Golden State Warriors power forward Draymond Green called the Thunder’s group interviews “a little alarming” during an early-season edition of his podcast. “There’s a certain seriousness that it takes to win in this league, and there’s a certain fear you have to instill in teams in order to win,” Green said. “And I don’t know if they’re instilling that fear in teams with all of the bromance and stuff after the game.”
Green’s comments, whether serious concern or a trolling attempt to create controversy for a rival, went viral. But they didn’t elicit much more than a shrug from the Thunder, a team that does not do drama. “We’re just concerned about what’s going on here and everything else kind of takes care of itself,” Jalen Williams said, claiming it was the first he’d heard of Green’s comments when asked about them a few days later. “I feel like it’s kind of weird to have a strong opinion on it, but we’re just so locked in on what we have going on here.”
The Thunder have a point differential of plus-12.8 points per game, which would break the record set by the 1971-72 Lakers (plus-12.3) for the best in NBA history. They have lost consecutive games just once this season and have yet to lose three in a row. That’s a pretty convincing way to prevent questions about whether a team is serious enough.
“We all know it’s a job and then it’s a business, but at the end of the day, we’re playing a game we love every day,” Dort said. “Every time we wake up, we’re doing something fun and we want to keep that in everything. I mean, this game brings a lot of stress and a lot of stuff outside, so whenever we’re together, we want to have as much fun [as] we can have. That’s just some of the goofiness that we started doing and it helps the team, honestly.”
Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t bark after his Dec. 26 performance that Daigneault described as “a masterpiece,” when he carried the Thunder to a road win over the Indiana Pacers by scoring 16 of his career-high-tying 45 points in the final seven minutes. But Gilgeous-Alexander’s final words of his on-court interview with Gallo did provide a glimpse of the Thunder’s bond.
“All right, let’s go to Charlotte!” Gilgeous-Alexander said with genuine enthusiasm before revealing why the next stop, and a meeting with one of the NBA’s worst teams, had been circled on the Thunder’s calendar for weeks. “It’s Wiggs’ jersey retirement in Charlotte,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, pointing his thumb behind him at Aaron Wiggins as Kenrich Williams playfully massaged the reserve forward’s shoulders and Jaylin Williams jokingly smacked him in the chest. “Let’s hurry up and get there!”
A day ahead of their game against the Hornets, the team’s entire traveling party boarded a bus at their hotel in Charlotte for a 90-minute drive to High Point, N.C., to visit Wiggins’ high school alma mater, Wesleyan Christian Academy. Wiggins was honored in a pregame ceremony, and the Thunder stayed for the first quarter to watch his younger brother, Zacch, play before getting back on the bus and making the journey back to the Charlotte hotel.
The Thunder made a similar trip — 90 minutes each way from Dallas to Waco — to celebrate Kenrich Williams when his high school retired his number the night before a December road game last season. “This is my only team, but I don’t think it’s like that on every team,” Jalen Williams said. “It’s something that nobody on the squad takes for granted.”
Originally Written by: Tim MacMahon
