adriana lima.

The average Thanksgiving involves football on the tube, board games with boozed-up family members and slick dodging of any chore that presented itself, along with obscene amounts of food. Then, you sleep well into Black Friday and wake up in time to watch Arkansas upset No. 1 LSU in a scintillating college football game.

Two athletes fared slightly better than you did. Little-known Serbian point guard Marko Jaric flew his new supermodel girlfriend, Adriana Lima, to Denver to spend Thanksgiving with him. Jaric starts for the Minnesota Timberwolves, is making $6 million this year and is a big fan of Tupac.

He also entered a rarified pantheon previously occupied by the likes of Tom Brady and Chris Webber, two athletes who have also dated Victoria Secret lingerie models ― Gisele Bündchen and Tyra Banks, respectively. (Aside: A friend of ours actually asked us, "Since she's a lingerie model, and everybody has seen her in lingerie, does that remove some of the allure of dating a model?" We have discontinued this friendship.)

The arrival of Lima to Jaric's side had a profound impact after Thanksgiving ― he averaged 18 points and six assists over his next three contests. It should be noted, however, that Lima told GQ Magazine last year, "Sex is for after marriage. [Men] have to respect that this is my choice. If there's no respect, that means they don't want me."


The other athlete who passed the cranberry sauce to a celebrity over the holiday was Dallas quarterback Tony Romo. After easily dispatching the Jets, it was reported that Romo and Jessica Simpson got together with others for dinner. The two may have had something cooking last year at about this time, which happened right after he told the Dallas Morning News he was "always a Jessica Simpson fan."

It would be silly for us to

speculate about the nature of their relationship ― this is what, the third potential "girlfriend" of his in a few months (Carrie Underwood, Sophia Bush) ― but here's something that would be infinitely cool: If the Cowboys met the Steelers in the Super Bowl, Simpson might attend to cheer on Romo, and her ex-husband Nick Lachey probably would attend to cheer on his pal, Ben Roethlisberger. Fun times.