One of the main reasons that Steven Adams is such a beloved character in Aotearoa is that despite how embedded he is in the high-stakes world of National Basketball he still just seems like a down to earth kiwi fella.

In the pantheon of great NBA Draft classes... nobody is ever going to talk about 2013. More likely they’ll be waxing lyrical about the jewels of 2003. They’ll be singing the praises of what 1984 had to offer. They’ll be glowing with love for 1996 crew. But 2013 is probably way down at the other end of the spectrum.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances the game has been postponed.” - That was the line from the PA announcer at Chesapeake Energy Arena, roughly half an hour after the Oklahoma City Thunder were supposed to have tipped off against the Utah Jazz.

See, all it took was a bit of rest. No sooner had Steven Adams come back from eight days off during the All Star break, apparently largely spent training his new dog, than he’d ripped back into it for the Thunder at the level we’d been hoping to see from him all season.

And here we are. A week after the trade deadline passed with the Oklahoma City Thunder choosing to sit comfortably back in their seats with no knockout offers forthcoming, they now roll into the great big period of rest and recalibration that is the All Star Break.

Well folks, the time has come and gone. The NBA Trade Deadline passed at 9am on Friday in Aotearoa time and as of that moment Steven Adams was effectively confirmed as an Oklahoma City Thunder player for the remainder of the season.

This Thunder season has been a pretty fascinating one. It wasn’t supposed to be, they were meant to be a tame if competitive losing team that could beat a playoff team if they dropped their game but otherwise would live in the lottery with all their hoarded future draft picks. Except that everything’s kinda clicked into place instead.

Alright, it’s time to get back on the Steven Adams beat for real now. It’s been a strange old couple months as the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise adjusted to life without Russell Westbrook for the first time ever and adjusting to losing a guy who’d had such a record usage rate was always going to require some time.

What’s happened since is that the Thunder have started to figure things out. Perhaps not coincidentally that’s happened as Steven Adams has been playing the best basketball of his season so far, looking as healthy as he has to date and living it up in the box scores as a result. Even his free throws have come good!

We’re now fourteen games into the NBA season for the Oklahoma City Thunder and eleven games into Steven Adams’ own campaign. That’s eleven games of evidence as to what’s going on and we’re still none the wiser.

The early days of the new NBA season were a false start for Steven Adams. Coming off the supreme touch and control he seemed to have in preseason, building up some lofty expectations, he was a shadow of himself across the first week or so as a left knee contusion clearly affected his ability to play to his capacity.

Steven Adams has always done the little things that help a guy like Russell Westbrook thrive. Now he has to do the thriving, which is a very exciting prospect – and one we got a delicious taste of in preseason when he was one of the most effective dudes out there across the whole NBA.

The state of the Oklahoma City Thunder has changed drastically over the last few months but all the words that are spoken and all the deals that get made and all the hypotheticals… nothing quite hits home like that first opportunity to see the team together in uniform ahead of a new season.

We do know one thing for sure and that’s that with the plethora of draft picks that they acquired in those two trades – which could see them with multiple first round picks for the next five years if things break right – this is a team that is ready to embrace a rebuild. The cupboard is stocked full.