Latrell Sprewell
Spree Ride

Yes, Spree has his flaws. He has, as we've learned, something of a temper, as well as an occasionally imperfect understanding of his shooting range. But in the open court, zigzag cornrows flip, flop, and flying, he's dead serious. Spree's what makes the O go. Bladelike and baleful-eyed, toting all that baggage, he transcends his own badass. So what if he decides to skip training camp because he doesn't trust FedEx to move his stereo and he likes to drive along the interstate in his custom Jag just contemplating and staying in motels? Dave Checketts fined the player $130,000 for the incident. But when the Garden president was asked if it wasn't "kind of impressive" that a major corporate asset like Spree would be far enough removed from rat-race compulsion that it didn't even occur to him to call in for more than a week, Cablevision company man Checketts had no choice but to wistfully shake his head and say, "Yeah, it is." Spree's so free. He thinks nothing of handing out quotes expressing his still palpable "hatred" and "bitterness" toward P. J. Carlesimo and the Golden State organization, saying "I'm going to go in there and crush them." Gets your attention, the noncontrition, all that never saying you're sorry. Sprewell's a badass all right. But he's our badass.
Mark Jacobson

Danny Meyer
Head of the Table

"In an age when so many groups are rolling out restaurants faster than your local baker makes donuts, my goal is that each restaurant feels hand-crafted," says Danny Meyer. "That they have their own soul." His restaurants do. The soul shows in the antique rugs of Gramercy Tavern and the bright interiors of Union Square Cafe, as well as the six-time James Beard Award recipient's latest venues: Tabla, his Indian-inspired hit, and the airy Eleven Madison Park. These last two have become instant institutions in an area where few serious restaurateurs had ventured for 100 years: Madison Square. "At the turn of the last century, it was really the premier venue for dining out," he says, referring to Delmonico's, the long-defunct boîte where late-nineteenth-century New York's elite lingered for a night out. And he's put a considerable amount of his money where his mouth is, spearheading the $11 million campaign to restore the park to its Gilded Age splendor. This nostalgia for a slower-paced gentility may have succeeded too well. "That's the problem," he says jokingly. "We can't make our financials work out, because no one wants to leave."
Anna Rachmansky

Murray Moss
Homestyle

These days, when even Christie's puts cocktail shakers on the block, it's hard to imagine a time, back in the dark ages of 1994, when displaying a stainless-steel wastebasket in a SoHo shop window was considered cheeky. "It's a double-edged sword," admits Murray Moss, whose eponymous store inserted haute industrial design between the art-world stalwarts PaceWildenstein Gallery and Metro Pictures five years ago. "I wanted people who knew how to look at an object and assume there was something more to look at than a wastebasket," he says. "Today, people expect that there's something more." This year, Moss expanded his vision, quintupling his store's space with an annex called, appropriately enough, More. It carries some of the same designers Moss treasures -- Gaetano Pesce, Enzo Mari, Philippe Starck, Droog -- just bigger stuff, like sofas and storage units, to accompany the glasses and pots, dish racks and silverware he's always sold. "You can't just say anymore, 'We're opening an Italian restaurant' or 'We're opening a coffee shop,' " Moss says. "You have to have cappuccino. You have to open a restaurant specializing in the food of Puglia. Five years ago, no one knew there was a region called Puglia." Industrial design, as much as fashion, has become a means of self-definition. You now know if you're more Ikea or Anthropologie, Totem or Wyeth. And in New York now, Moss keeps growing and growing.
Alexandra Lange