Hardaway and Rock in a Lil' Penny Reunion It is hard to explain to younger basketball fans, but from 1994 to 1998, Penny Hardaway was a star so famous and so talented that he was rivaling Michael Jordan in popularity. Even harder is explaining that Hardaway's Nike ads featured a rude puppet alter ego voiced by Chris Rock, one of the biggest names in comedy. And just try convincing them that at the time, Hardaway was by far the more famous person in that duo. In many ways Hardaway was LeBron James before James was. He was a tall point guard who had an uncanny ability to score, pass and rebound. He had seemingly established himself as Jordan's successor in commercials and on the court before a series of injuries turned him from a superstar into a role player. The two men responsible for Lil" Penny will be reuniting for the first time Thursday, when Rock is a guest on the Bottom Line Sports Show, an Internet radio show that Hardaway executive produces and occasionally appears on alongside the show's regular host and founder, Gerald Brown. Despite having been linked through the Lil" Penny character for nearly 20 years, Hardaway and Rock have spent little time together as their parts in the commercials were filmed separately. "We've never discussed Lil" Penny other than doing our jobs working for Nike," Hardaway said. We both got famous off a great commercial, and we've never really interacted on it. And now he's just become this huge mega-star, and I don't know how much he really thinks about it. While the character has had his ups and downs in popularity, its influence can be felt in a great deal of advertising because Hardaway was able to pitch himself as both a player and as a comedic personality, something James has often tried to emulate. "They came to me to talk about my sneakers and where we wanted to head next, and someone talked about an alter ego," Hardaway said. When I heard it, I laughed because I'm laid-back and reserved, and this alter ego of course was going to be the bad guy. Most of us have a little bad guy in us. Other commercials have paid homage to the Lil" Penny spots in a number of ways, most famously with those for Nike featuring puppet versions of Kobe Bryant and James in 2009. Blake Griffin, the Clippers" star forward, got in on the fun by making a parody video for Funny or Die in which he was given a Lil" Blake doll. Lil" Blake proved even more troublesome than Lil" Penny, committing multiple homicides. "It's something I've always enjoyed," Hardaway said when asked if he had considered distancing himself from the puppet as its popularity waned. Everything is trendy. Everybody was really hot on those commercials, and then when we stopped shooting them everyone just moved on to something else. But if you go back and look at those commercials with the beauty of YouTube, then you start understanding how funny those commercials were all over again. One big part of that is the voice work by Rock, who at the time had recently left "Saturday Night Live." Hardaway was excited when he was told Rock would be voicing the character as he was familiar with his standup routines. But, as Hardaway pointed out, "At that point in his career he wasn't really Chris Rock, he was just a good comedian trying to make it." Now that Rock is among the biggest comedians in the world, having proved himself in movies, on television and even on Broadway, it should be interesting to see where Lil" Penny stacks up for him among his career achievements. But for Hardaway the significance is more clear. Lil" Penny serves as a reminder of just how much the basketball and advertising worlds thought of him, regardless of where his career ended up. The Bottom Line Sports Show crew is encouraging readers to submit questions for Hardaway and Rock through Twitter and Facebook.