Louisville’s Rick Pitino made his chess move last week, and now, it’s John Calipari’s turn. In a maneuver that won’t get him in any trouble with the NCAA, the new Kentucky coach hired Brandon Weems as a graduate assistant. Who’s Brandon Weems?

Weems was a teammate of LeBron James’ back at St. Vincent-St. Mary (Ohio) and is one of LeBron’s closest friends. One source told me that Weems’ presence in Lexington was key in LeBron showing up on the campus during the summer.

“Hey impressionable 11th grade recruit – meet my graduate assistant. He played high school with LeBron. Want to talk to LeBron?”

That’ll be all for us today. For the early portion of tomorrow, Ty Duffy will be running the show, so email him anything you see around the web that looks neat (Tyduffy@gmail.com). And we’ll get around to as many of you wannabe commenters as we can in the next 24 hours before the season begins.