He sat behind the Kentucky bench on Monday night during the NCAA Championship basketball game and I'm thinking William "Worldwide Wes" Wesley should have just dropped the charade and slid in beside coach John Calipari.

The Wildcats beat Kansas 67-59.

Anyone following major college basketball knows that talent rules. And anyone following the line of talent, first to Memphis, and now to Kentucky, knows that Calipari and Wesley are college basketball's sweetest couple.

Who is Wes?

That question is only answered by watching the guy over the last decade. He pops up in NBA locker rooms, and at the Nike Hoop Summit, I once saw him walk around The Palace at Auburn Hills during a NBA Finals as if he owned the building. He didn't even wear a credential. Wesley was so at ease, he went into the Pistons locker room at halftime. Later, a NBA security staffer approached him, and I watched to see if Wesley might get asked for identification.

Nope.

The security guard borrowed Chapstick.

Damon Stoudamire told me one summer a few years ago: "Wes is running the NBA."

After Monday's championship game, I think William Sidney Wesley is now running all of basketball.

I've talked to Wesley a dozen occasions over the years. At times, he's asked me to not to quote him, not to mention him in print, not to write about the relationships he has with basketball players.

"Everytime you mention me, it causes me trouble," he told me once after I'd written that he sat alongside then-prep star Kyle Singler during a NCAA Tournament game.

You understand in the end that Wesley's central mission is to get close to young, talented basketball players. And now, he's working as a consultant for Creative Artists Agency, on his way to becoming a full-blown certified NBA agent.

Trail Blazers? You want to win big in free agency this summer? You'll need to get close to "Uncle Wes." Hire the guy as GM and leave nothing to chance.

Oregon fans know what I'm talking about. Wesley is close friends with former Ducks assistant Kenny Payne. They met while Payne was a player at Louisville. And when Payne was hired by former coach Ernie Kent, it wasn't long until the talent followed to Eugene. Detroit-area blue-chipper Malik Hairston chose Oregon over Michigan. In fact. Hairston told me, "I've known Wes forever," after I saw the then-sophomore at Game 3 of the 2006 NBA Finals babysitting Wesley's 4-year old son in a court side seat.

I asked Wesley about their relationship a few days later and he tried to explain that inner-city kids were haunted by threats of terrorism and looked to a place like Eugene as a safe haven. I laughed so hard that I nearly spit Pepsi through my nose. Wesley laughed too. I like the guy. And in that, you understand he's a salesman with a high social IQ and a purpose. He's leveraged a one-time job as a 20-year old sneaker salesman at a strip mall in New Jersey into a power gig.

Payne is an assistant with Kentucky now, incidentally. No shocker there. Ask about it his relationship with Calipari, and Wesley calls it a "friendship." Probably worth a deeper look by the NCAA, although, Wesley is no Willie Lyles. He's too sophisticated and has been doing his job for too long.

Wesley has droves of friends, turns out. I took a drive to Wesley's house in suburban Detroit during those 2006 NBA Finals. When my cab pulled up, LeBron James' SUV was in the driveway. There's been speculation that "Uncle Wes" was involved in James' decision to dump his original agent, Aaron Goodwin, for Wesley's childhood friend Leon Rose, a certified NBA agent. Wesley refutes it.

Scottie Pippen told me Wesley was a regular with the Bulls in the 1990s and said, "Wes knows everyone." I sat with Chuck Daly, the late Pistons coach, once and he said of Wesley: "He was always around our teams." And Wesley himself told me once of his connections: "It's like the six degrees of separation. I'm just friendly. You're friendly. We get to know people."

I watched Wesley work the room at the Rose Garden Arena last April during the Nike Hoop Summit. The Blazers played the Lakers at the Rose Garden on a Friday night before the annual high-school basketball summit and here was Wesley, post game, ushering the world's best young players around the event-level arena hallways, introducing them to the Blazers and Lakers players.

The kids must have felt Wesley was the most important man in the building. At one unforgettable point, Wesley saw Lamar Odom and Ron Artest approaching the loading dock exit, walked over, slapped backs with the NBA stars and then turned them back toward the young players who were watching the whole scene.

"I have someone I want you to meet," Wesley said.

Jaws dropped. Odom and Artest shook hands and talked with the players. Wesley slipped to the back of the group, watching his work, and I just shook my head.

So yeah. Kentucky won an NCAA Championship on Monday. After the game, Wildcats star Anthony Davis climbed into the stands and shared a celebratory hug with Wesley, who was sitting in the Kentucky family section inside the Superdome.

Calipari got his title. He did so with a roster filled with mind-blowing talent. But most notably, with Wesley sitting behind the bench, watching, off the coach's shoulder.

"Uncle Wes" should have helped Kentucky cut down the nets.

John Canzano: 503-294-5065;

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