On Wednesday night, a few hours before they tipped off at home against the Grizzlies, the Oklahoma City Thunder showed up looking ready to work. And not on the court—more like if they all served on the board of the world’s swaggiest hedge fund. Rookie guard Darius Bazley sauntered in like a ten-year vet in a double-breasted chalk-stripe suit with a matching tie and a pair of serious Clark Kent frames. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, maybe the most stylish player on the roster, traded in his regular rotation of advanced streetwear for a lush camel sport coat over a trim turtleneck and gray flannels. And then, most brain-exploding of all, noted sweatpants enthusiast and Jason Momoa stunt double Steven Adams—all seven feet and 250 pounds of him—rolled in direct from the set of Peaky Blinders: painted-on navy three-piece, peak lapels wider than a GMC Yukon, all topped off with a tweedy newsboy cap.

Oklahoma City Thunder Bob Metelus Studios

The last Thunder to arrive was the same one responsible for the whole thing: a power-pinstriped Chris Paul, who swathed his entire team in fine tailoring as a personal gift.

It’s hardly out of the ordinary, of course, for NBA teams to treat the pregame tunnel like a red carpet—sometimes literally, like in the case of the Houston Rockets, who lead the league in OFPG (that’s outrageous fits per game, for all the non-statheads out there). And while modern NBA style tends to trend toward the wilder, looser end of the menswear spectrum, squad-wide suiting does have some precedent: LeBron James famously decked his Cavs out in Thom Browne’s signature highwater silhouette during the 2018 playoffs. But the suits OKC rocked last night weren’t high-concept fashion uniforms à la Browne; they were suit-suits, the old-fashioned kind, real-deal bespoke numbers in a multitude of individually-chosen fabrics and cuts. What prompted Paul to give his teammates the collective glow-up? It all started with Marvin Gaye and the Redeem Team.