This piece has to start with a mea culpa: Before the season started, I essentially wrote off the Thunder's chances of advancing to the playoffs.
Admittedly, that opinion wasn't uncommon. The Thunder's haul in the trade that sent Paul George to the Clippers was gargantuan, loaded with future draft picks, Shai Gilgeous Alexander - who'd shown glimpses of his potential in his first year with the Clippers - and Chris Paul, a hall of fame point guard who seemed destined to become trade fodder.
Add to that mix the departure of franchise talisman Russell Westbrook to Houston, and the stars appeared to be aligning for an imminent rebuild.
Now, here we are. Gilgeous-Alexander has established himself as one of the most promising young players in the league, a healthy Paul has embraced his role as his young team's leader and reverted to peak point god mode in a top-10 MVP candidate season, and newly minted NBA Coach of the Year Billy Donovan has crafted the Thunder into the fifth seed in the Western Conference heading into this week's playoffs.
As far as our own beloved Steven Adams is concerned, the 2019/20 season has been relatively ho-hum. While he's maintained his metronomic double-double production, his trademark offensive rebound rating has dipped (4.9 to 3.3 per game) along with his scoring (13.9 to 10.9 points per game) during a career-low 63 game campaign, caused by ongoing issues with his leg and knee that have stifled his ability to truly find his rhythm.
Since the season resumed in the Orlando bubble, the Thunder have sensibly taken a cotton-wool approach with Adams, and - with the Thunders seeding secured - the strapping Kiwi has only played sparingly, though encouragingly well.
If you're a Thunder fan, you love to see it, because Adams will be critical to any hope of advancing past their first-round match-up against the Houston Rockets, which promises to be one of the most intriguing showdowns of the opening bracket. As history attests, Adams always brings his best come the post-season, and his team will need every inch of his physical, throwback style of play to stifle the breakneck Texans.
One of the form teams of the second half of the season the Rockets' brand of basketball is founded on a high-octane offence spearheaded by the terrifying two-pronged assault of James Harden and his new backcourt cohort Westbrook.
After a shaky start to their campaign, the Rockets' turning point came with a trade that offloaded Clint Capela in a four-team trade for 'three and D' extraordinaire Robert Covington, a bold move that signalled a wholehearted commitment to playing small ball.
That's resulted in a starting line-up with PJ Tucker - at just 6ft 5in tall - playing centre. The Rockets have been consistently destroyed in the rebounding department every time they've been on the court, but have made up for it with an offence that has stretched opposing defences to its limits, allowing them to spread the floor with their arsenal of long-range shooters, push the ball in transition, and get to the foul line.
Every team knows what they're going to do, but few have been successful stopping it, especially since the season resumed. The Rockets have been drive-and-kicking teams to death, raining threes at an unapologetically high rate that not even the likes of the league heavyweights have withstood.
The Thunder have won two of their three games against the Rockets during the regular season, but they've yet to play them since they converted to small ball.
This is where Adams' ability to remain spry and versatile defensively will be crucial to the Thunder's ability to stem that tide. His primary coverage will be Tucker, who's shooting corner three-pointers at a better rate than any other player in the league. Adams will be relied upon to recover from protecting the rim to shut down that corner, while also cleaning up defensive rebounds.
Adams' prowess on the offensive glass will also be critical, and another area where the Thunder need to punish the smaller Rockets frontline. Second-chance opportunities should be a staple of the Thunder offence, and Adams should feast on putbacks, while his lob connection with Paul has to hum.
If the Thunder can limit the damage defensively with a bigger line-up that may also involve Nerlens Noel, who's an elite rim protector, they may look to use Adams in post-up situations against the Rockets' mismatched post-defenders, including Harden, to get them into foul trouble.
As much as the Rockets have reinvented themselves, the Thunder's innovative three-guard line-up of Paul, Gilgeous-Alexander, and Denis Schroder - who's morphed into a Sixth Man of the Year candidate in OKC - will pose plenty of questions for D'Antoni and his defensive schemes.
The Rockets have stuck with a small rotation in the latter part of the season, and their size has enabled their defence - led by the uber-versatile Covington - to switch relentlessly.
The challenge, particularly for Paul and Gilgeous-Alexander, will be to exploit some of those inevitable mismatched switches - especially on the interior, where the likes of Adams and Danilo Gallinari can play inside-out and make the Rockets pay at the line.
Rookie Darius Bazley has also been a recent welcome surprise for OKC. The small forward has proven an offensive revelation in the bubble and at 6ft 8in, could thrive against the Rockets.
Westbrook's quad strain means he's unlikely to feature in, at the very least, the opening games of the series. The former Thunder stalwart going against his former team is one of the most intriguing narratives of the early post-season, but his absence opens a window of opportunity for OKC.
Harden's otherworldly talents mean the Rockets's drop-off sans Westbrook is never precipitous, but it will limit the speed of their transition play for which his whirlwind play is the catalyst, as well as free up another OKC defender to throw at Harden.
The lingering question remains: what to do with Harden? The Thunder have the likes of lockdown specialist Andre Roberson, but his complete lack of anything resembling offence makes it tough to keep him on the floor for long stretches. Canadian rookie Luguentz Dort has excelled defensively and has the size and strength to stand up to Harden's.
But the league's premiere scorer, who's arguably one of the greatest offensive talents ever, will get his, regardless. It could simply be a case of letting Harden feast and trying to starve the rest of the Rockets, then crossing your fingers for some poor shooting, though his supremely under-rated passing has exposed that tactic in the past.
Incidentally, the Thunder's foul rate is among the lowest across the NBA, which bodes well for limiting the number of opportunities that Harden - who's a walking free-throw attempt - can draw at the line.
But really, for as much as we can speculate, the unknowns surrounding playoffs in a bubble add a huge air of unpredictability. Some teams have clearly adapted better to the new environment than others, and the complete irrelevancy of home-court advantage plays hugely into the hands of the lower-seeded teams.
There's another whole element of mental endurance involved, as players try to negotiate the unique stresses and strains that come with being separated from their families for such a lengthy period of time, particularly when we get to the later rounds.
Upsets could be on the menu, and Adams' Thunder prevailing over the Rockets seems one of the likeliest to eventuate.
Game one of the series takes place 10:30 am, Wednesday August 19 (NZ time).
