NBA Names & Faces: Time Is On LeBron’s Side

TIME’s Sean Gregory profiles Cavaliers F LeBron James and writes, “Ever since [Michael] Jordan’s first retirement a dozen years ago, the NBA has searched from Chi-town to China for a star as dominant and marketable as His Airness. The contenders have bounced off magazine covers and TV commercials: Anfernee (Penny) Hardaway, Grant Hill, Allen Iverson, Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant.” James “is already far ahead of the pretenders. ... He has resurrected the moribund Cavaliers and, in a season marred by an ugly melee in neighboring Michigan, perhaps the NBA as well.” Bucks Coach Terry Porter: “You could argue that LeBron is kind of carrying the league right now” (TIME, 1/31 issue).

‘MAINE MAN: In a profile of Pacers F Jermaine O’Neal, SI’s S.L. Price notes Indianapolis-based Klipsch Audio, which signed O’Neal last summer to serve as a national spokesperson, “never made a sound about backing away from O’Neal” after the November 19 Pacers-Pistons brawl. Klipsch Audio Marketing Coordinator Tom Meyer-Klipsch: “Now that we’re out in Best Buy and mass-merchant retail, Jermaine’s face is the one we want out there” (SI, 1/31 issue).

GOT MELO? Nuggets F Carmelo Anthony appears in a Got Milk? ad in the January 27 issue of Rolling Stone. The ad shows Anthony, with a milk mustache, dunking a basketball, with the tag, “Big Man Off Campus” (THE DAILY).