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So once again, youth is served. But in this, the 10th year of next, there is more than prodigy on the menu. Turns out, we're on the cusp of a world about to be irrevocably changed by an offense known as the spin, a superfood called sport beans and a horse named scamper. Intrigued? So were we …

Keeping score The race to grace the cover of our NEXT issue came down to the wire. After 227,834 votes were cast at ESPN.COM, here's how it shook out: DWIGHT HOWARD 64,477 CALVIN JOHNSON 62,427 EVGENI MALKIN 49,668 JOSÉ REYES 38,504 JUAN PABLO MONTOYA 12,758

DWIGHT HOWARD

-RIC BUCHER

There must be something Dwight Howard is afraid of, but the search continues. Follow in the disastrous footsteps of Kwame Brown as a straight-from-high-school No. 1 pick? Gladly. Step into the legendary shoes of Shaquille O'Neal by switching from power forward to center for the Orlando Magic? No problem. Live up to hype that he is the perfect storm of prestigious big men? Doesn't even make him flinch. Howard's rimbending dunks draw comparisons to vintage Shaq, and his bubbled biceps and long stride conjure up images of David Robinson. His kiss-the-rim hops and prodigious rebounding are classic Kevin Garnett; his post-swat primal screams are pure Alonzo Mourning.

It's nice company. But of course, those guys are yesterday, and Dwight Howard is NEXT.

To be anointed the "future" of your position, much less your sport, you need more than stats; you need magnetism, and the 21-year-old Howard has it in buckets. Yes, he's a double-double machine, and yes, he's the youngest player in league history to rack up 20 points and 20 rebounds in a single game (he's done it six times now, four this season), but he also has the most contagious smile in the NBA. It's a cartoonish grin so wide and so toothy that you almost forget his job is to run the floor and intimidate. In the rare moments when he's not scoring (17.1 ppg), rebounding (12.3 rpg) or blocking shots (1.9 bpg), it's the big grin that keeps you watching. "He might be the silliest guy in the league," says Magic GM Otis Smith.

Makes sense, then, that Howard's two nicknames are Thunder, for his tenacity on the court, and Sho'nuff (a goofball character in the martial arts spoof The Last Dragon), for his big-kid persona. It also makes sense that Shaq, the last Orlando big man to possess both of those qualities, recently annointed Howard one of the NBA's next dominant big men.

Heady stuff for a guy who three years ago was in Atlanta prepping for his high school prom. But the pitfalls that most often prevent young, talented athletes from realizing their potential—ego, greed, shortsighted friends or family—are not threats to Howard. For all his outrageous talent, he remains a devout Christian, a dedicated son, a caring teammate. He carries a Bible on the road and is a mainstay at pregame chapel. He consults his father, a Georgia state trooper, and his mother, a school teacher, on any major purchase or decision. Catch him headed for the weight room, and he'll have a half-dozen Gatorade bottles with him, offering them to anyone he sees.

Having played sparingly as a rookie and then strictly as a complementary player last season, Howard still has a lot to learn before he understands the game the way the aforementioned legendary big men do, but his stint with Team USA in last summer's World Championship clearly advanced the learning curve. He was a long shot to make the team when it convened for tryouts, yet he wound up the bronze-medal-winning squad's best big man, starting five of nine games and finishing second only to LeBron James in rebounds (41 to 43) despite playing 97 fewer minutes.

While Howard's unfamiliarity with the international game was apparent, his dominating practices against stars like LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Elton Brand showed him just how high in the NBA constellation he had risen. "I saw it all summer," says Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich. "He's a freak of nature."

And while there are plenty such "freaks" in the NBA, Howard has chosen to carve out his place as something more rare: a bona fide center. Anti-center sentiment has been growing ever since Garnett resisted the "C" label because it had come to represent lumbering behemoths limited to wrestling underneath for rebounds, setting screens and launching jump hooks. Being a power forward like Charles Barkley, shooting threes, taking guys off the dribble and dunking seemed like a lot more fun. Some teams don't even list pure centers on their rosters anymore. Rule changes have put small ball in vogue and inspired lineups that feature a power forward (Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace) as the lone big man on the floor.

Quick, long, agile. That seems to be the template for big men in the lickety-split NBA these days, and Howard fits the bill. He can run the floor with ease and shoot from the perimeter. So it was no surprise that, when he arrived in Orlando as the first overall pick of the 2004 draft, he expected the Magic to use him as a KG, not a Diesel. But Smith had other plans. He wanted that 7'6" wingspan and chiseled 265 pounds under the rim. So Howard went to work—not just redefining the center position, but bringing it back from the dead, with the potential to combine KG's range and Shaq's low-post power.

"Dwight calling himself a 5 might seem like a little thing, but it's big because he's accepted all that comes with it," Smith says. "He is going to define what the future big man looks like."

The perfect storm, perhaps?

"When he got here, I told him to stop wanting to be the next KG," forward Pat Garrity says. " 'Look around. There are already people who want to be the next you!' "
Exactly.

CALVIN JOHNSON

-LUKE CYPHERS

You will hear, in the weeks leading up to the NFL draft, that Calvin Johnson is not a diva like other superstar receivers, that he's a lot like Marvin Harrison, only much bigger. (His wideout coach at Georgia Tech, Buddy Geis—who also coached Harrison in the NFL—says Johnson is better, too.) You will hear about his size, his speed and his unfathomable acrobatics. Above all, you will hear that he is not arrogant. That last point is dead wrong.

Watch him play. Johnson has the arrogance of a man who can do anything he wants on a football field. Just lining him up at wide receiver makes a brash statement. Men this fast are not supposed to be this big. He is 6'5", 235 pounds, with 4.3 speed in the 40 and a 45-inch vertical leap. But there's more to Johnson than measurables. He instinctively uses his size to shield the ball from defenders, and he reacts in the air as well as anyone in the game, at any level—the second coming of Larry Fitzgerald, but easier to spot in a crowd. There's video all over the web to prove it.

Good thing, because self-promotion is not one of Johnson's strengths. He doesn't preen after first downs, or complain when a play goes bust. He shuts up and plays. And shuts up some more. Whether it's shyness, humility or boredom, Calvin Johnson says very little about Calvin Johnson. A recent phone interview before the Gator Bowl mined exactly zero usable quotes. Which was fine, really, since his nine catches for a careerhigh 186 yards and 2 TDs said quite a bit.

Thing is, Johnson has so much more to talk about than football. He was a pro baseball prospect in high school, and this son of a Ph.D. actually paid attention in college. During a summer job last year at a Tech research lab, Johnson helped design and build an affordable water-conserving latrine for third-world countries. And so his decision to skip his senior year and enter the draft was just that, a decision, not the foregone conclusion most assumed it to be.

Yes, you'll hear a lot of Calvin Johnson stories in the next several weeks. And the best part is, when he finally hits an NFL field this fall, you're going to hear even more.

EVGENI MALKIN

-LINDSAY BERRA

Even Mark Cuban knew it, as he walked out of Mellon Arena on Oct. 24 with a $277 No. 71 Evgeni Malkin jersey. The Dallas Mavericks owner had just watched the 20-year-old Russian score the defining goal of his skyrocketing rookie season (so far, anyway). "What I saw in Pittsburgh was the most exciting glimpse of NHL greatness I have ever seen," Cuban blogged days later.

What he saw was this: Malkin flew across the blue line and caught a pass from fellow phenom Sidney Crosby, then pulled the puck from his forehand to his backhand, split New Jersey defensemen Colin White and Brad Lukowich, cut hard toward Marty Brodeur's net, stopped short, spun and slipped a backhand inside the right post, all while being hacked by White. "Shades of Mario," proclaimed the TV announcer. Overnight, the goal became a YouTube classic.

Penguins captain Mark Recchi isn't surprised by the buzz. "The first day he stepped on the ice, I knew he was going to be all-world" says the 17-year vet. "You hate to make the comparison, but he reminded me of Mario." There's that name again. It's only natural that Malkin is likened to Lemieux. But the kid's size (6'3", 195 pounds), playmaking ability and shooter's touch recall nearly every NHL star, past and present, over six feet—Jean Beliveau, Vincent Lecavalier, Mats Sundin. "He's big, strong and does everything at 100 mph," Brodeur says. "He's not afraid of traffic. He's not afraid of anything."

Malkin's steely nerves served him well last August. After being coerced into signing a contract with Metallurg Magnitogorsk, the Russian team that refused to release him to the NHL after he was drafted second overall in 2004, Malkin disappeared from the squad at the Helsinki airport. He resurfaced in the U.S. several days later, visa in hand. A breach-of-contract lawsuit followed, but he was determined to skate as a Penguin. "This is most important," Malkin says. "It's my dream to play in the NHL." (The lawsuit was dismissed in November.)

These days, it's the dream of Pens fans to keep hockey in the Steel City. If money woes force the team to leave town, true believers will have to follow Malkin's ascendency just like the rest of us: on YouTube.

Then again, that's a hell of a lot better than not seeing him at all.

JOSÉ REYES

-L.B.

In November, with the finale of the five-game series between the MLB All-Stars and their Japanese counterparts tied at three in the bottom of the 10th, José Reyes dug in at the plate. Suddenly, the Fukuoka Dome sounded like Shea Stadium, with the melodious chant of Jo-sé, Jo-sé sing-songing its way through the stands. Reyes didn't disappoint: He belted reliever Hisashi Ogura's fastball over the rightfield wall for a "sayonara" home run, giving the MLB side its first sweep of Japan in 72 years. Still, Reyes claims, "I'm not a power hitter. My game is my legs."

There's no argument about his wheels. In the past two seasons, he's stolen 124 bases and legged out 34 triples, both MLB highs. But it's his bat, not to mention his glove, that has made the 23-year-old Reyes the best young shortstop in baseball—and maybe the best, period. The 160-pound switch-hitter has muscled up at the plate, improving his average from .273 in 2005 to .300 in '06 and his slugging percentage from .386 to .487. In the process, he powered the Mets to the playoffs for the first time in six years. "José is a lot more than just the explosive speed that people see," says former Mets third base coach Manny Acta, now manager of the Nationals. "He's got great hands, great footwork, and he's not afraid to get up there and hit."

The Mets know Reyes is their future. That's why GM Omar Minaya protected the club's $23.25 million investment by prohibiting Reyes from playing winter ball with Gigantes del Cibao in his native Dominican Republic. The high-energy leadoff man needs to remain healthy so that the Mets, who dropped a heartbreaking Game 7 to the Cardinals in last season's NLCS, won't have to hear a
repeat of Redbird Nation's derisive chant: No-way, No-way.

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA

-L.C.

Juan Pablo Montoya is NEXT? A 31-year-old with a wife, two kids, flecks of gray hair and triumphs at the most famous race courses in the world—Monza, Monte Carlo, Indianapolis—is NEXT? Well, if you're an executive at NASCAR, and your dream is to have a big-talking Latin driver usher the sport to millions south of the border, then heck yes, Montoya is NEXT.

Before announcing his switch from Formula One to NASCAR last July, he had already won at the highest levels of open-wheel racing: the CART title as a rookie in 1999, the Indy 500 in 2000, seven Formula One victories in five years. Montoya, a native of Colombia, has driven hard and talked big at every level. "That's why I call him a throwback," says Mike Hull, managing director for Ganassi Racing, recalling the days when Unser, Andretti and Foyt would race shopping carts just for the thrill of it. "Yeah," says Montoya, "I like to drive the wheels off the race car."

And yet, no driver has successfully made the transition from openwheel to stock cars since Tony Stewart went from CART to NASCAR nine years ago. Certainly, no driver has been asked to make such a leap while carrying the weight of NASCAR's global expectations. But, as is Montoya's rep, he hasn't backed down. "I'm here to win," he says, which is exactly what he did on Jan. 28 at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Adds his Busch series crew chief, Brad Parrott: "Within three years, we'll see him win the Nextel Cup."

Montoya has said all the right things since entering the sport near the end of the Busch season, but it's only a matter of time before his new-kid-on-the-oval gentility loses out to his world-famous mouth. After finishing his third Busch race, at Phoenix, in 20th place, he vented his frustration at middle-of-the-pack drivers who, he claimed, wouldn't get out of his way: "It's tough passing these guys—they're just too dumb. I'm trying to be as friendly as I can be, and whether they like it or not, I'm here for the long run. So it's their problem, not mine."

Big talk for a rookie. That's why Montoya is NEXT.