Once upon a time, the end of the AFL and NRL seasons spelt unmitigated dread for many Australian sports fans.

In those dark days, people were even known to turn to summer sports such as cricket to soothe the blow. Others tried horse racing, while some of the most disturbed experimented with things like golf and fishing. 

Some even tried re-connecting with their families.

In recent times, however, things have changed dramatically, with the end of the Australian football season no longer something to fear, as the NBA has well and truly won the hearts and minds of the Australian sports fan.  

There are just two weeks left until we’ll be treated to eight straight months of some of the world’s very best athletes, competing nightly upon the stage of one of the most intense and cutthroat sporting theatres on earth.  

But should we be any more excited about this season than others? The answer is a definitive yes, and here are five of the strongest reasons to be most excited about season 2019/20.

... BECAUSE IT’S WIDE OPEN

The Toronto Raptors' NBA Finals conquering of the Golden State Warriors was every bit as thrilling as a David versus Goliath story. It not only made for one of the biggest shocks in contemporary sports history but provided so much hope to the rest of the league.

For the Warriors, the loss likely resulted in the end of their dynastic rule over the NBA. Not only did two-time Finals MVP, Kevin Durant,opt to sign with the Brooklyn Nets in free agency, but future Hall of Famer, Klay Thompson, sustained a serious knee injury in the Finals and will miss the bulk of the new season. The Warriors will be good, however not five-straight-NBA-Finals- good.

While the league owes so much to what the Warriors provided over the last five years, their diminished strength will result in a much more competitive league.

In fact, the breaking up of the Warriors inspired an unprecedented off-season of player movement, with the league morphing into a giant snow globe, which, once settled, seems to have produced an entirely new competitive landscape.

Toronto’s hero - and Finals MVP - Kawhi Leonard, decided to take his talents to the LA Clippers, along with Paul George. The move makes the Clippers the market favourites while plunging Toronto into something of a mini-rebuilding phase.

Long-disgruntled Pelican, Anthony Davis, was traded to the LA Lakers, with New Orleans receiving one of the most generous trade packages in NBA history - to go along with Zion Williamson, who the franchise took with the #1 pick in the draft.

Former league MVP, Russell Westbrook, has joined forces at the Houston Rockets with another former MVP in James Harden, in what promises to be one of the strangest chemistry experiments in all of sports. 

The Utah Jazz made a huge splash, too, by landing one of the league’s pre-eminent point guards in Mike Conley. Speaking of point guards, you can now find Chris Paul playing for the Oklahoma City Thunder on a team who - courtesy of the Paul George trade - is one whose future draft capital situation is far rosier than this season’s prospects.

The Eastern conference off-season player movement was just as volatile as the West. 

Philadelpia 76er, Jimmy Butler, decided that a contending, championship-ready Sixers outfit wasn’t for him, instead opting to sign with the Miami Heat. While the loss of Butler wasn’t ideal, the 76ers did sign five-time All-Star, Al Horford, while also convincing the excellent Tobias Harris to stay.

RELATED: Are the 76ers Genuine NBA Championship Contenders?

Boston's Kyrie Irving has joined forces with the injured Durant on a young and emerging Brooklyn Nets team, while the Boston Celtics will hope to replace Irving’s production with the Charlotte Hornet’s Kemba Walker, who signed a four year, $141 million deal to provide something a little more stable than Irving’s ‘unique’ brand of leadership.

The Milwaukee Bucks - the East’s first sixty-win team in five years - were one of the few contending teams who did relatively little this off-season. They bring back the core of a team that was just two wins away from an NBA Finals appearance, with the exception of Malcolm Brogdon, who’ll be playing for the Indiana Pacers next season.

This time last season there were seven teams with odds of less than 50-1 about winning the championship. This time round you can find 14 teams in that bracket, which is indicative of just how wide open and competitive this season promises to be.

... BECAUSE OF THE UNICORNS

So much has changed in the NBA in recent years, with the game evolving into a frenetic, perimeter orientated sport, whose pillars are speed and three-point shooting.

The product that has emerged is almost unrecognisable to what came before, and while so many of the sport’s fundamentals (such as possession, passing, defence, rebounding etc) all remain, they exist at warp speed.

There are numerous factors which have contributed to the NBA’s ‘brave new world’ such as more sophisticated coaching and better overall conditioning, however, the strongest influence has been the type of athlete that’s increasingly entering the league.

While roundly referred to as 'Unicorns’, these positionless, athletically-varied superstars continue to redefine and reestablish so much of traditional basketball convention.

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antekokounmpo, and his stellar MVP campaign last season, marked the definitive arrival of the NBA unicorn, as he drove the long-suffering Bucks to the brink of the NBA Finals. Essentially, the ‘Greek Freak’ played without a defined position, thriving both offensively and defensively, providing a night-by-night, jaw-dropping highlight reel for fans. Last season, Antekokounmpo proved once and for all just how much the NBA has changed, that when such a vastly unique skillset is paired with a progressive coach such as Mike Budenholzer, the unicorns of the NBA world are indeed able to reach heights long considered unattainable.

Thankfully for the NBA fan, Antetokounmpo isn’t the only player worthy of the unicorn descriptor. 

Denver Nuggets' 23-year old Serbian, Nikola Jokic, last year placed fourth in MVP voting, and was the driving force behind a Nuggets team whose 54 regular-season wins were bettered only by the Warriors in the Western Conference. On the face of it, Jokic looks like your traditional, lumbering big man, yet he possesses some of the most sublime skills in the game. At seven foot tall and 250 pounds, Jokic averaged 7.3 assists last season which is usually a number associated with some of the league’s best point guards, and not a hulking centre.

Other NBA unicorns include the Dallas Mavericks’ Latvian sensation Kristaps Porzingis, who at seven foot three can hit the three-pointer at an elite rate, while just as comfortable dominating down low in the post. 

The Lakers' recent acquisition, Anthony Davis, flashed his unicorn traits for Kentucky at the college level, was taken #1 in the draft and has since mesmerised NBA fans with his multifaceted, MVP-calibre game. It’s a similar story with the Minnesota Timberwolves' Karl Anthony-Towns, while Philadelphia’s Cameroon-born Joel Embiid is another who defies traditional categorisation; lethal from three, and almost unguardable at the rim.

These unicorns not only make for must-watch viewing, but have proved that the NBA is a broad church which continues to evolve and accommodate players with a range of physiques and playing styles.

... FOR ZION

If you were a sports fan with any kind of pulse over the past year, it was virtually impossible to have not got caught up in the hype of Duke’s freshmen sensation, Zion Williamson.

In just one season of college basketball, Williamson was scheduled viewing every time he stepped out on court, quickly emerging as the most sought-after prospect the NBA had seen since LeBron James some sixteen years earlier.

RELATED: 5 NBA Players to Break Out in 2019-20

Williamson’s cannonball-game with gymnast-like flexibility made him a threat from anywhere on the court. Mixed in with his outrageous finishing skills and a deep portfolio of dunks, Williamson ensured that every franchise in the NBA was dreaming about securing his services through the draft and building a team around him.

Incredibly, it was the New Orleans Pelicans who won the lottery of lotteries, after entering the ‘Zion Sweepstakes’ with just a 6% chance of winning - emerging  with one of the greatest consolation prizes of all time - considering their franchise star, Anthony Davis, would soon be traded to the Lakers.

Most importantly for the league, the Pelicans, and the average NBA fan, New Orleans also hired David Griffin as President of Basketball Operations. Griffin immediately got to work on the Davis deal, which culminated with his franchise securing one of the greatest trade bounties in history, receiving a slew of first-round draft picks along with the highly talented Laker duo of Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram.

The future is suddenly very bright in New Orleans, with the long-suffering Pelicans set for an exciting era with Zion at the core. 

They’ll be a must-watch each game they play.

... BECAUSE LAST YEAR'S ROOKIE CLASS WAS RIDICULOUS

It took just one season to confirm that the 2018 NBA draft was indeed a special crop that’ll likely have a profound impact for some time.

Dallas’ Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic did precisely what he’d been doing in Spain and at international level - which was dominate players far more experienced than him. He took home Rookie of the Year honours and will be a key component on a Mavericks team desperate to return to the NBA Playoffs.

Interestingly, the team who had the chance to draft Doncic at #3, the Atlanta Hawks, proved there was a method to their madness on draft night last year. Not only did they get a future first pick out of the Mavericks for the rights to draft Doncic, but used the Mavs #6 selection to grab Oklahoma’s Trae Young, who very much delivered in his rookie season. Young was the only player in the league - along with Russell Westbrook - to dish out more than 600 assists alongside more than 100 made three-pointers.

Last year's #1 draft pick, DeAndre Ayton, also flashed ‘unicorn’ potential in his first season with the Phoenix Suns, registering 39 double-doubles, while the #2 pick, Sacramento King, Marvin Bagley III, was an instrumental part of a much-improved Kings team and figures to be a budding superstar in the league.

Seeing these guys develop and thrive with a full season already under their belts will make for compelling viewing.

... THE AUSTRALIAN FACTOR

Australian basketball is presently in something of a golden age, and while it, unfortunately, didn’t translate to a long-dreamed-of medal at this year's FIBA World Cup, it’s a movement being driven by our representation in the NBA.

In recent years, both Andrew Bogut and Matthew Dellavedova have played key roles on championship-winning teams in Golden State and Cleveland, however, in terms of pure talent, Australia hasn’t really produced anyone quite like Ben Simmons, who Philadelphia took with the #1 pick in the 2016 draft. Simmons legitimately looks set to take the league by the scruff off the neck in 2019, and if he indeed develops an effective jump shot, then Philly may well be on their way to ending their 37-year championship drought.  

RELATED: 5 Outsiders Who Could Win the NBA MVP

Australians are littered throughout the rest of the NBA. In recent seasons Joe Ingles has emerged as one of Utah’s most crucial cogs and will play another huge part in the Jazz’s quest for Western Conference supremacy. Jonah Bolden is a part of the rotation in Philadelphia, Ryan Broekhoff will play in Dallas this season, while Patty Mills will continue to be one of Gregg Popovic’s most relied upon veterans within the San Antonio Spurs puzzle. For those looking for Aron Baynes and his exceptional beard, he can now be found in the desert with the Suns, while Dellavedova will be doing similar in Cleveland with new coach John Beilein relying heavily on his veteran leadership.

It’s now a matter of counting down the hours until the new season starts and here at Stats Insider we simply can’t wait. Be sure to check in daily for our match predictions, championship projections and continual top-shelf coverage of one of the greatest sporting competitions on planet Earth.

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