NBA star Lebron James came in for some withering sarcasm on 'The Colbert Report' (Weeknights, 11:30PM ET on Comedy Central).

Talking about how LeBron and "America's Sweetheart Team," the Miami Heat, had fallen to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, Stephen Colbert mocked the grandiose way in which LeBron opened the season and the petulant way he ended it.

Casting his eye over what he referred to as "the humble beginnings" of the season, when the ending of LeBron's free agent saga was the subject of a live one-hour TV "event" on ESPN, Colbert showed footage of LeBron and his teammates Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade rising heroically onto a stage via forklift amid a ton of smoke and spotlights.

Then Colbert showed us LeBron in defeat, saying "of course, [he] handled it with class," before running a clip of LeBron speaking at the post-Finals press conference, in which he was distinctly less than gracious about his critics.

The post-season has arrived for the National Basketball Association. The NBA Playoffs are upon us, starting today on ABC and ESPN, and tomorrow night on TNT, and that means the networks are shifting into overdrive to present all the games, all the action, and -- especially -- all the stars to the viewing public. Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, Dwayne, Dirk, Rajon ... if you're a fan, you don't need the last names. That's how big the star power is for NBA elite players.

It's perhaps even bigger than the NFL or any other major league. And that's one reason why the NBA is not the number one sport in America, but it is the number one marketed sport. That's a point illustrated in the new promo for the TNT broadcasts featuring music and movie stars Jamie Foxx and Justin Timberlake extolling the virtues of the NBA playoffs.

Usually television shows, especially comedies, should try to end a strong note and Jay Leno's Friday show did just that. Well, the last part did.

The interviews were much improved, including the dreaded "Ten@Ten" segment, the comedy worked for the most part and the show finally seems to be fitting around Jay the way a plastic shrink wrapper engulfs its product. Except there are quite a few air bubbles that need pounding.

Have you seen the annoying new ad campaign for the ESPN SportsCenter relaunch? If you watch even a half-hour of ESPN programming -- or like me, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption -- you can't miss these commercials.

There's a young, 20-something guy named Steve running around with a bulky, scoreboard-like digital clock with a strap that hangs around his neck like he's a peanut vendor at a baseball game.

The ads show him going through his day -- working out at the gym, jogging -- while he's waiting for the launch of the new, 9-hour SportsCenter on August 11. The commercials are completely live, which I grant you is novel, but they are not funny, clever or up to the ESPN standard. I hate them. They're jarring, poorly done and, like I said, annoying. I guess some genius in marketing decided that any way to make the viewer remember that a new format is coming is good enough.

Here's a sample of Steve's work (don't say I didn't warn you!):