How many will return?

Raise your hand if you have seen this before. A rabid home crowd supporting an underdog is juiced up because they're in their own barn and really believe their team can take down the champs.

But the game starts and the champs start making the home side look like chumps, and suddenly, the crowd goes quiet as all the optimism and enthusiasm are sucked out of the building. Yes, I see all hands in the air.

Well that's exactly what many NBA fans feel today with the announcement that the first two weeks of the regular season have been cancelled. Heck, some of those fans, the casual ones that just wanted to be in the building, are leaving early muttering, "What a waste. I won't be coming back."

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The hard core fans will come back. Why? Because they understand that this is part of the relationship with professional sports. Hard core fans know, like having a family member, you can love them, disagree with them, vehemently at times, but never abandon them. Those fans will eventually come back.

But the casual fans? That's where the NBA is going to have a problem. It's this group that can't understand why, like the NFL, a deal couldn't be reached between the owners and the players. Sure, you can point out to them that the leagues and circumstances are different, but the bottom line to them is, "I don't care how rough the water is, just bring the ship in."

Aside from monetary issues, consider that during one of the toughest economic periods in the United States, and world history for that matter, NBA revenues increased. As more money rolls in, the league's popularity also trends higher.

Say what you want about LeBron James and "The Decision," but it sure polarized the NBA fan base. Fans were either rooting for Miami, or becoming supporters of any team that could take the Heat down. Many peripheral fans, some that really don't even understand all facets of the game, became taken by the drama of it all. It's like the Tiger Woods effect in golf: you tune in just because everybody's talking about it and you want to see for yourself why everyone is making such a fuss.

There is one other variable here. The NBA is still, in these eyes, fighting some old, stereotypical attitudes. Neither side, owners or players are going to win the public relations battle.

You try explaining to a household in these tough economic times that you are fighting over nine and 10 digit figures. It just isn't registering on the sympathy meter. And while owners, most of whom are faceless and nebulous, can dodge some of the fan base's salvoes, the players do not have the same luxury. They are the ones that are out there front and center.

Both sides lose here because while some in the fan base choose sides. And the problem becomes while they fight with one another, eventually the players need the owners to pay the salaries and the owners count on player popularity to put butts in seats, buy merchandise, and increase the bottom line.

With the first two weeks of the season gone, the "new" fans find something else to do. It's something that should concern NBA management and the league in general.

Here's an example, maybe an extreme one, but there is one close friend who became a baseball fan in the mid-80s as he watched the Toronto Blue Jays ascend to the pinnacle of baseball not once, but twice in 1992 and 1993 with World Series titles.

With the newly constructed SkyDome all the rage and a top-flight team, he soon became a season ticket holder. Why not? The team was hot and so was the building. It was the place to be in Toronto at that time.

But after baseball cancelled the World Series in 1994, he hasn't gone back. Yes he's been to games if someone happens to give him a ducat here or there, but his thought is that if the World Series can survive world wars, who are these guys to cancel it?

There have been many people reach out on social media via twitter to say the exact same thing about the NBA. They are the casual fan that say, "I'm not coming back."

So in many ways the NBA has its work cut out. No only do they need to get a deal to bring the league back, but they also face an uphill battle to win back the peripheral fan.

It's a concern and the faster they can get a deal done, the faster the healing starts with those that have walked out of arenas for good.

Even former players, once some of the NBA's most popular names, share the concern.

Paul Jones is the voice of the Raptors on the FAN 590 and writes regularly for Sportsnet.ca.