If the past 2 weeks of conversation out in Vegas are to leave any indication of the NBA’s future, professional basketball fans across the country should have their seat belts fastened, table trays put away and seats returned to the upright and locked position. Negotiations as the new Collective Bargaining Agreement approaches are sure to be turbulent with major delays (in actually regular season playing time no less) seemingly inevitable at this point. Early figures released by commissioner David Stern‘s office report that the league lost an estimated 370 million over the course of last season. The players union disputes this figure, claiming the league’s figures could be off by as much as get this 370 million. For those keeping track at home, that’s exactly 100 of the approximated total, meaning all negotiations will be more or less starting from scratch. Though the NHL, MLB, NFL and NBA have experienced stoppages of play at the hands of financial disputes before, the disparities between contentions of the players and owners may have never been so bleak.David Stern, who has served as the league’s commissioner since 1984, has been through this before. The NBA’s most recent shortened season was the result of the 1998-1999 NBA Lockout, centered around salary cap and maximum contract disputes with regards to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Months of heated debate and compromise finally resulted in a deal, but not before a large chunk of the season had been lost. Had disputes lingered one day longer, it would have met the deadline for the cancellation of the entire 98-99 season. The threat of full-on cancellation played a major role in bringing both sides to agreement as the league’s highest paid players suffered the most to lose with less means of recouping the cash. As it stood, a 50 game season began in February, in which the Spurs went on to defeat the Knicks in the NBA Finals. Fans did not immediately take to the league’s resolution with forgiving embraces. TV Ratings and ticket sales declined nationwide. With sides currently so far apart as preliminary negotiations continue in this go-round of collective bargaining, the prevailing question appears to be, “how will this stoppage of play compare to the severity of the 98-99 lockout?” as opposed to, “how can we come to terms and avoid cancelling games entirely?”