Chet Holmgren remains a basketball unicorn, a status forged in Minnesota and on display for Oklahoma City

The little daredevil pedaled his bike down the family’s steep driveway, 4 years old and oblivious to the danger. He ended up in the emergency room with a gash on his chin that required stitches.

Upon returning home, the boy raced to his bike. Still dressed in hospital garments, he took his bike back down the driveway, successfully this time. No fall, no harm.

Young Chet Holmgren experienced the taste of victory that day.

“I’m convinced he spent the entire time while being stitched up thinking about what adjustments to make to conquer that hill,” said his mom, Sarah. “He was simply born with an ‘I can accomplish anything I put my mind to’ mentality.”

That intrinsic motivation served as fuel aboard an athletic journey that has brought him to a uniquely personal moment. Holmgren has returned home as an outsider trying to spoil the party in the exact location that holds a special place in his heart.

The 7-1 Oklahoma City Thunder center looked around Target Center on Saturday morning, and memories came flooding back.

He won multiple state championships on that court as a prep star at Minnehaha Academy. He used to stop at the Lifetime Fitness in the basement of the arena every day after school starting in seventh grade to play pickup games. He recalled with a smile the time the Memphis Grizzlies were in town and assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse, a former NBA star, joined the game.

And though his keen eye recognized a few changes to the downtown skyline, Holmgren is keeping nostalgia at arm’s length to maintain clarity on the mission. His team holds a 2-1 lead over the Timberwolves in the Western Conference finals but is coming off a 42-point thrashing that changed the tenor of the series heading into Game 4 on Monday night.

“At the end of the day,” Holmgren said, “I’m rocking with the Thunder, so we have to get it done.”

He turned 23 on May 1 and is essentially only 1½ seasons into his NBA career because of injury delays, but a sense of wonderment and curiosity has followed Holmgren like a boat wake inside the basketball world since his early teens.

The trail of crumbs began in third grade inside the gym at DeLaSalle High when Holmgren showed up in khaki pants and collared shirt to meet a man who would mold his basketball clay.

Larry Suggs was an AAU coach and skills trainer. His son, Jalen, and Jalen’s best friend, Tyrell Terry, were fourth-graders on the team and supremely talented guards at their age group. (Both became NBA players, too.)

The thing that grabbed Larry Suggs’ attention was when Holmgren’s dad, Dave, a 7-footer who played for the Gophers, had to duck when walking through the door to avoid banging his head.

Suggs told young Chet that if he could learn guard skills while also growing to 7 feet like his dad, then “you could be possibly unstoppable one day.”

Suggs already had become invested in developing positionless players. He worked in reverse order of traditional methods with Holmgren. Rather than stick him inside the post as his body sprouted, Suggs trained him as a guard first, then gradually incorporated big-man lessons as he got older.

At practices, Holmgren went to a hoop by himself to work on form shooting. He had to attempt 250 shots before every practice before he could join others. He focused on ballhandling, footwork, perimeter shooting in drills.

“There are a lot of people who have fingerprints on my journey, and I’d say [Suggs] has some of the most profound ones,” Holmgren said. “He saw where the game was going way back when and helped teach me the right fundamentals.”

As a freshman at Minnehaha Academy, Holmgren’s role was as a three-point specialist. By sophomore year, he stood 7 feet with a 7-4 wingspan and oftentimes brought the ball down the court on a fast break.

Asked that season what position he plays, Holmgren replied, “Whatever position I need to play.”

Asked what position fans might think he plays after watching him in action, he replied, “They would say I don’t know what he is.”

Hard to define but exceptional in that he became the national player of the year in high school and No. 2 overall NBA draft pick after one season at Gonzaga.

He produced a viral moment as a teenager attending Steph Curry’s camp when he crossed up the NBA superstar in a scrimmage with a slick behind-the-back dribble, finishing his razzle-dazzle with a two-handed dunk.

Holmgren has always been something of a basketball unicorn.

People looked at his height as a young kid and assumed he was uncoordinated. He wasn’t.

They looked at his thin build and assumed he could be pushed around and bullied physically on the court. Wrong again.

He shot three-pointers better than guards, blocked shots better than anyone and possessed the nimbleness of a squirrel.

Suggs recalls the day Holmgren shimmied up a gutter to the roof of his brother’s house to retrieve a Frisbee. As adults watched in horror, Holmgren held the Frisbee above his head and growled like a Tusken Raider from “Star Wars.”

His parents saw that mischievous side quite often. The family visited Washington, D.C., when Chet was about 8. They went to a playground, where their son bounced around the different equipment before spotting a chain-link fence.

He climbed to the top of the fence and was preparing to leap over to a third-story balcony of an adjacent apartment building. His parents yelled for him to stop while noting that he would be arrested for breaking and entering.

Nope, he told them. It would only be trespassing, not breaking and entering.

“His climbing/athletic skills were second only to his quick wit,” his mom said.

His family marvels at his creativity and entrepreneurial spirit as a person, traits that are revealed when he’s on a basketball court as well.

Ryan James, national recruiting analyst for Prep Hoops, describes Holmgren as “the smartest and best shot blocker I’ve ever seen” because of his timing and the way he uses his longs arms without fouling.

Cretin-Derham Hall coach Jerry Kline had a star-studded team with future college players that defeated Minnehaha Academy in a regular-season game. But Kline changed his team’s offensive approach that game — relying on fast breaks and threes — to avoid Holmgren’s intimidating presence in the paint.

“Chet is just so unique,” Kline said.

Unique and tough, which is an underrated part of the package that has enabled Holmgren to answer a question that has followed him at every stop from high school to college to NBA: How is a guy that slender going to hold up physically against stronger players?

Just fine.

“I’ve seen him pull his lip out of his braces after he got elbowed and he kept on playing,” former Minnehaha Academy coach Lance Johnson said.

Some kids embellish injuries, Johnson noted. Holmgren did the opposite. He hid aches and pains from his coach so that he wouldn’t have to stop playing.

His toughness was revealed that day, as a 4-year-old, when he hopped on his bike and stared down his steep driveway. He took a spill that sent him to the ER for stitches, but he conquered the hill when he got home. The first block of many to come.