Obama hits the links with ESPN host

After one of the most exciting free agency weeks in NBA history, President Obama is hitting the links with ESPN basketball analyst Michael Wilbon and Boston Celtics part-owner Glenn Hutchins on Saturday.

The game comes less than 24 hours after four-time MVP LeBron James announced that he was planning to return back to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, setting off a flurry of trades and free-agent singings.

{mosads}Longtime Obama aide Marvin Nicholson is rounding out the foursome, golfing at TPC Potomac Golf Club, a championship course in Montgomery County, Maryland.

On Friday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said James’s decision made a “pretty powerful statement about the value of a place that you consider home”

“The fact that he’s made this decision, I think, is a testament to the kinds of values that he has incorporated into his life and that he says that he’s interested in instilling it his children,” Earnest said, adding that President Obama was a “big fan” of the NBA superstar.

“The president is a fan of somebody that has demonstrated such tremendous skill and athleticism on the court, and the president enjoys watching him play,” Earnest said. “The president also has had an opportunity to meet him personally a few times, and the president does consider him to be a fine young man who carries himself with the kind of professionalism that is really pretty impressive to see.”

Obama golfed with Wilbon’s “Pardon the Interruption” co-host Tony Kornehiser just two weekends ago. Kornheiser and Wilbon, longtime Washington Post columnists, golfed together with the president in July 2013 and September 2013.