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"FacebookPinterest\n\nThere is no truth to the rumors that the Charlotte Bobcats are changing their name to the LOLcats.No one's laughing about Charlotte rookie Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who was excellent at Kentucky last season and wowed in a single summer league appearance with the Cats. He's not a great jump shooter, but he plays with relentless energy and hustle, and seems to revel in doing things (grabbing boards, defending, making the extra pass) that most other players forget about. Also, he's pretty much the only LOLcat between 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-8, so he has that going for him.Two years ago, everyone cried and complained that the Atlanta Hawks had handcuffed themselves by signing Joe Johnson to an extravagant six-year, $119 million contract. This, we were told at the time, was the worst contract in the NBA, if not in all of professional sports...... But then this summer, new Hawks general manager Danny Ferry traded JJ to the Brooklyn Nets. The lesson here: You can ALWAYS trade a contract in the NBA. Always. You might not get back as much as you'd like, but contracts can always be moved. All it takes is one sucker eager trading partner.Here's the thing about Joe Johnson, though: he's a stone-cold scorer in a league that doesn't have a lot of them. You might have slept through his run in Atlanta\u2014sometimes it seemed as if Joe was sleeping through it, too\u2014even as he dropped 18 points a game. But he's a six-time All-Star who drew double teams and was every defense's focus, but still took care of the ball, created shots for himself, and found the open man when the double-team came. His reluctance to drive to the basket became tiresome, especially to this Hawks fan, but he made up for it with one of the sweetest jumpers in the NBA. Now in BK, playing alongside Deron Williams, the best PG JJ's played with since Steve Nash almost a decade ago, Johnson should be fantastic. No sleep on Brooklyn?With Linsanity officially dunzo in NYC, we need a new bloggy meme name for Knicks basketball. New York Nightmar'e? Woodsanity? Melo Gold?By the way, the Knicks are 347-520 since Jeff Van Gundy left. I'll be honest: I miss finding empty Diet Coke cans along the bench area after games at Madison Square Garden.One thing I love about these Knicks is their ancient bench: Marcus Camby, Jason Kidd, Rasheed Wallace, Kurt Thomas, and don't forget Pablo Prigioni, the Argentinean import I just added to my spell check database, who is just beginning his rookie season in the NBA at 35(!) years of age. And if there was ever a coach who should revel in having a well-aged bench, it's Mike Woodson, who treats experience like currency. If Woody can juggle their minutes and keep these guys off the chilling list, this bench could be surprisingly effective.There's been too much talk about the Knicks and Nets heading into this season, and not enough about the Boston Celtics. Don't forget that despite last season's wacky and relentless lockout-compressed schedule, despite all the injuries, the Celtics were just one win away from sending Miami home and going to the NBA Finals instead.We probably should have realized the Celtics were aging when Paul Ryan tried to persuade their training staff to use a voucher program. Over the last five seasons, they've won about 60 percent of their games, but in that period, they've played slower and slower, making scoring more difficult. Last season the C's averaged just 91.8 points per game, 26th out of 30 NBA teams.But they'll probably score more this season. They've livened up their backcourt with Jason Terry, Courtney Lee and Leandro Barbosa. With those guys playing alongside former GQ intern Rajon Rondo, and with Kevin Garnett schooling Jared Sullinger and Fab Melo, and with Paul Pierce raining threes and rumbling his way to the rim, the Celtics are going to give Miami another run for their money.Yes, Rondo was a GQ intern back in September. Check this out.\n\nSOME FANTASY BASKETBALL ADVICE, EVEN THOUGH I DON'T PLAY FANTASY BASKETBALL\n\nIf I was putting together a fantasy team, here are some players, just off the top of my head, who I would consider drafting in an early round: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Bob Cousy, Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon. And then you could kind of go from there.What's that? That's not how \"fantasy\" basketball works? Then let me suggest that you need better fantasies, my friend.Many NBA observers spent a lot of time last season wondering how Miami would address a lack of production from the center spot. Coach Erik Spoelstra mid and matched, and the Heat started at center, variously, Joel Anthony, Ronny Turiaf, Dexter Pittman, and even, briefly, Eddy Curry. And despite that murderer's row, the Heat, of course, won the NBA championship.Which is why it's no surprise the Heat have spent so much time this preseason talking about playing \"position-less basketball,\" as they do in this terrific piece by Tom Haberstroh.A style of basketball that is \"position-less\" should be referred to as \"Romney-ball.\"WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING WALT \"CLYDE\" FRAZIER MIGHT SAY ABOUT LEBRON JAMES?: \"As his hairline has retreated, his game has completed.\"When it comes to the Atlanta Hawks\u2014and in my world, it always does eventually\u2014my objectivity tends to go out the window. But even I wouldn't pick the Hawks to finish second in the East like ESPN the Magazine recently did. Look, Josh Smith might be my favorite player in the NBA, and Al Horford is consistently overlooked among the NBA's elite centers. (More on that in a second.) The Hawks have essentially replaced Joe Johnson with Devin Harris, Lou Williams and Kyle Korver. But small forward is still a question mark, and for all the talk the Hawks have given us the last five years about being a running, fast-break team, we've never seen it full realized. I'm hoping it works, but...we'll see. #atlshawty(Re: Horford: The discussion you will often hear accompanying Horford is that he is actually a power forward playing out of position at center. Perhaps this is true, but when a guy has started pretty much every game of his five NBA seasons at center, and when a guy has made the All-Star team twice as a center, I think it's time to admit that Horford is a center. And if we can agree he's a center, then he's definitely the best ball-handling center in the NBA.)\n\nGREAT QUOTE FROM THE PRESEASON, VOLUME 1\n\nRick Carlisle, Dallas Mavericks coach, on the Mavs' high turnover levels throughout the preseason: \"We're doing it every way you can do it. If we were a sex manual, it'd be a best-seller.\"We know the Chicago Bulls will likely be without Derrick Rose for a chunk of this season. This is obviously a bad thing, considering that just two seasons ago, Rose was rated as the most valuable player to his team in the entire NBA. Still, last season, before Rose tore his ACL, the Bulls went 18-9 without him, while he was battling his through other injuries. To be clear: This is in no way a suggestion that the Bulls are a better team without Derrick Rose. They are not. But...I do believe the Bulls without Derrick Rose will be a better team &amp;amp;#xC2; than we expect. If they keep doing all those Tom Thibodeau-y things that they do so well\u2014 defending, moving the ball on offense\u2014until Rose returns, don't overlook them this season.My favorite player on the Indiana Pacers? Roy Hibbert, for many reasons, including coming on my podcast with his BFF, writer and stand-up comic Chelsea Peretti. But more recently, for organizing a \"Gangnam Style\" flash mob at an Indianapolis mall.BTW, I'm going to be really disappointed if someone at GQ doesn't use \"Gingham Style\" as a headline.I've learned a lot about the Philadelphia 76ers by playing the video game NBA 2K13: Andrew Bynum is slow to roll on a pick-and-roll, Jrue Holiday can develop into an All-Star, and Nick Young shoots every time he touches the ball.Using the \"My Career\" mode in NBA 2K13, I now at start at the two guard for the Sir. The rate I'm going, I might be making an appearance in the Rising Stars Challenge on All-Star Weekend.The Cleveland Cavaliers obviously took a huge hit when LeBron/talents/South Beach, but they've rebounded awfully well. Kyrie Irving was fantastic last season, and Tristan Thompson also had a quietly effective rookie season. With Dion Waiters now running the two and with Andy Varejao in the paint, it's not crazy to think the Cavs could make the playoffs.Another Eastern Conference team I'm keeping a close eye on: the Washington Wizards. John Wall needs to step up his game, but with Bradley Beal alongside him, with two legit NBA post men (Emeka Okafor and Nen&amp;amp;#xC3;&amp;amp;#xAA;) down low, and with several quality swingmen (Trevor Ariza, Martell Webster) on the wings, the Wizards have the pieces to hang and bang with most teams. I don't think they'll make the Playoffs, but I do think they'll make a run at it.The Miami Heat will be the class of the Eastern Conference, obviously. Less obvious: whether Erik Spoelstra will work up the courage to stop dressing like Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black.Considering Jeremy Lin has never started more than 25 games in an NBA season, and yet he is one of the most popular players in the NBA, here are some Valid Jeremy Lin Thoughts And Questions for us to examine:In his recent GQ cover story, Lin told Will Leitch, \"I was like, 'I want to play in front of these fans for the rest of my career.' I really did. I really wanted to play in front of the Madison Square Garden fans for the rest of my career, because they're just unbelievable.\" This is a nice sentiment and all, but if he really wanted to stay in NYC so badly, why did he sign a contract that was specifically designed to discourage the Knicks from matching it, and then ask the Knicks to match it? Couldn't he have brought them a contract designed to be matched? Or taken a qualifying offer?Another Valid Jeremy Lin Question: As Will explained in his story, in the span of twelve days, Lin went from going 0-3 in seven minutes of playing time against the Celtics to being on the cover of Sports Illustrated. So my question is, what happened to set this transformation in motion? Either one of two things happened: A) Maybe Lin, after years of practice and training, got significantly better, or B) the circumstances around Lin changed--he was allowed to shoot as much as he wanted, his propensity for turnovers were overlooked, and lockout-tired teams weren't ready for the Knicks to attack with Lin.My guess is more B than A. This doesn't mean Lin is not a good NBA player or that he won't be productive as a member of the Houston Rockets. But if B is the answer, it suggests that as long as the circumstances around Lin continue to shift in unfavorable directions, it will be very difficult for him to continue putting up Linsanity-level performances.That said, Linsanity was a real, visceral phenomenon. I was at that Knicks/Lakers game last season at Madison Square Garden when Lin went for 38 points and seven assists, and of all the NBA games I've been to over the last twelve years, I've never heard a louder crowd. Everyone was skeptical that Lin could continue his roll against the mighty Lakers--but everyone desperately wanted him to, and sure enough, he went off almost immediately and carried the Knicks to a win. It was amazing. It was awesome. I just don't think we'll be seeing many games like it this year.So my final Valid Jeremy Lin Question is this: If Jeremy Lin starts all 82 games this season for the Houston Rockets and averages, say, 16 points and 8 assists per game\u2014very good numbers for any NBA point guard\u2014is that worth the contract he signed? (As my GQ editor Devin Gordon, former Knicks fan, points out: \"YES!! THEYRE PAYING HIM $5 MILLION THIS SEASON!\")You may have heard that the Lakers added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash. Did you hear that they began the preseason by going 0-7?Should we worry about the Lakers? No. First of all, it's the preseason. Second, they were shuffling around injured players, and they'll likely spend the first few months of the season figuring out rotations and offensive sets. And by the way, the Celtics went 2-4. No one's panicking in Boston.The Laker I'm most interested in this season is Pau Gasol. He's one of the most best players in the world, but he struggled last season under first-year coach Mike Brown. With the Lakers adding Dwight Howard and integrating a motion-based Princeton offense that would seem to play well to Pau's preternatural passing skills, his improvement might be the key to the Lake Show.The Clippers began last season with the trade for Chris Paul, generating lots of buzz, excitement, all that good stuff no one has ever associated with the Clippers. Then things sort of settled down, and though we got highlights of Blake Griffin dunking and Chris Paul doing Chris Paul things, the Clips mostly stayed in the shadow of the Staples Center roommates, the Lakers. They went 40-26, finished fifth in the Western Conference, and got drubbed 4-0 by San Antonio in the second round of the Playoffs. A good, above-average, solid season? Sure.But man, it's amazing what passes for amazing when you're the Clippers. Just consider: last season the team finished with a .606 winning percentage. This is a nice number--in a non-lockout shortened season, it would've mapped out to about 50 wins. That's a good season.But it's not a GREAT season. For normal franchises, it happens a lot. The Houston Rockets--nobody's idea of a historically dominant franchise--have topped .600 ten times since 1970. The Oklahoma City Thunder have done it three out of four seasons since moving to town. Even the Charlotte Bobcats have... wait, no, sorry, the Bobcats have never topped .600. But you get what I'm saying.The crazy thing is that since the Clippers franchise was established in Buffalo in 1970, they had NEVER before topped .600 winning percentage. Just decades and decades of futility. Pittsburgh Pirates fans feel bad for Clippers fans.\n\nADVANCED STAT ADVICE\n\nI grew up on points, rebounds and assists\u2014 the main stats basketball fans cared about back then. But like every other major sport, our understanding of basketball has been transformed by a number of advanced metrics now available to everyone. But most of them aren't nearly as well known as the ones that have taken hold in baseball. So I asked Kevin Pelton, one of the co-authors of the essential book Pro Basketball Prospectus, what is the one advanced basketball stat that casual fans should pay attention to?Scoring Effeciency: \"If you check out the NBA's statistical leaders on any mainstream website, you'll find teams ordered by their points scored per game. That's not the best measure of their offense, or conversely their defense. Coaches can dramatically alter their rankings with how fast or how slow their charges play. Take last year's Chicago Bulls, for example. Their 96.3 points per game were precisely at the league's average and ranked 18th out of 30 teams. However, because Tom Thibodeau prefers a slower, defensive style, that figure masks how efficient they really were. In terms of points scored per 100 possessions (a little more than the average in an NBA game), Chicago's 108.9 Offensive Rating was good for fifth in the NBA. Sadly, with Derrick Rose injured and significant losses on the bench, the Bulls are unlikely to repeat that kind of offense this season, but their points scored per 100 possessions will remain a better measure of their strengths and weaknesses, just like any other team.\"--Kevin PeltonThe Memphis Grizzlies have been sitting at the cool kids table in the NBA cafeteria for a few seasons now. They've overcome a few years of blues to become a legit team--but while they're consistently described as one of those \"teams you don't want to face in the playoffs,\" they got bounced in round one last year. They were a disappointment, period.Still, what I like about the Grizz is that they're not panicking, not making moves just to make it seem like they're doing something. They've kept their core together (Rudy Gay, Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph), and they're banking on improvement from within to get them to the next level.Also, the Grizzlies were recently sold to an ownership group that features minority partners such as former NBA players Penny Hardaway, former goggle model Elliot Perry, Peyton Manning and Justin Timberlake. If this sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch, well, just wait.Also also, in the NBA's high school cafeteria, the Bobcats are the kid who drops his lunch tray and all the other kids hoot and applaud.Also also also, in the NBA's high school cafeteria, the Portland Trail Blazers are the quiet kid with an aggressive haircut who sits in the corner and savors feeling misunderstood.I'm not much of a fan of the San Antonio Spurs, but the San Antonio Spurs terrify me. They aren't particularly thrilling, and they aren't flashy or trill (except for Stephen Jackson), but they just win, baby. Duncan, Parker and Ginobili are stultifying but effective, a hammer that just hits you between the eyes over and over. Even last season, when they ended up not figuring in the title chase, they tied the Bulls for the best record in the NBA.And if you're an NBA newbie, maybe the best thing about the Spurs? Spurs coach Gregg Popovich dealing with the media.Also, something fun not many people know about Popovich? He underwent espionage training before becoming an NBA coach. Really. Yes, it's possible Pop is also a spy.The Denver Nuggets have quietly sneaked into the upper tier of the Western Conference. They did it by trading their superstar, Carmelo Anthony, and building instead around coach George Karl's up-tempo system. This summer they added Andre Iguodala, a lockdown defender and an offensive player who can thrive without having to have the ball in his hands.Yet for all their athleticism in Denver, my favorite Nugget might just be Andre Miller. He is deeply unathletic, does not dunk the basketball, but always knows where to be on the floor and always makes the players around him better players.\n\nGREAT QUOTES FROM THE PRESEASON, VOLUME 2\n\nKobe Bryant, after former teammate Smush Parker criticized Kobe's leadership: \"It's all good. I wish him the best of luck. He's playing in China, right? I wish him the best of luck.\"It seems like we should discuss the Oklahoma City Thunder. They built on their young core (Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka), and then, last week, flipped Harden for a robust package from Houston, including Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and a couple of first round picks. This shouldn't have come as too big of a surprise\u2014they basically did the same thing with Jeff Green a few years ago, swapping him for Kendrick Perkins. Yet it did feel like a more seismic move, mostly because Harden was firmly entrenched not only as part of their big three on the court, but off the court Harden (and his beard) was just as integral to the style and swag the young Thunder comported themselves with.Even without Harden, the Thunder will likely continue to improve, as they have the last few seasons. The knock on them heading into last season was that they were so young, and that they didn't have experience in big moments. Yet they managed to advance all the way to the NBA Finals--and only then did look as inexperienced as they actually were.Related: One thing that makes the Thunder so impressive is the way they consistently learn from situations when other teams might miss the lesson. They lose, they fix the issue, and they move on. And in some ways, the OKC front office handled this Harden situation in an informed way, moving him as soon as they knew they couldn't re-sign him instead of letting it drag out through the season. So considering the Thunder were basically just shown how to win in the NBA Finals, who's to say they won't get back to the Finals and win it all this time?The toughest preseason injury may have been to Minnesota big Kevin Love, who fractured a knuckle during a workout while doing push-ups on his fists, either in an attempt to toughen up his hands or to get cast in \"The Expendables 3\"Love will be out a few weeks, but with Minnesota's sensational PG Ricky Rubio also out for the first half of the season recovering from a torn ACL, Minnesota, a marginal playoff team to being with, is probably going to end up on the wrong side of the margin for at least another year.The best shooter you've (probably) never heard of is Golden State's Klay Thompson.Have you ever seen a YouTube highlight video of a jump shooter? If not, this one probably explains why.The arena that the Sacramento Kings play in used to be known as ARCO Arena\u2014the name ARCO coming from an oil company that had purchased the naming rights. When that deal expired, the Kings re-sold the rights and re-named the arena the Power Balance Pavilion\u2014Power Balance being a company that sold those little bracelets with a hologram, allegedly to help you keep your balance. But while hammering out the deal with the Kings, Power Balance lost a class action lawsuit and was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Earlier this month, the Kings announced they had a new sponsor in place: Welcome, Kings fans, to Sleep Train Arena! I am not making this up.No, \"Sleep Train\" is not a reference to a marginally successful prog-funk band from the &amp;amp;#x2018;70s, nor a coarse reference to something adults might do. No, Sleep Train is a large mattress dealer based in California.\n\n65a. Seriously. I am not making this up. Sleep Train Arena. Their Best Rest Event is going on now! http://www.sleeptrain.com/\n\nIt's way too easy to make fun of this, so let's move on. For instance: Kings small forward James Johnson \"is 20-0 as a kickbor and comes from a family of blackbelts.\" So, we wish only the best this season for Mr. Johnson.\n\nPAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THESE THREE PLAYERS \n\nKevin Martin: I actually wrote this before Martin was traded to OKC, but it doesn't change my interest. Two seasons ago, when he was healthy enough to play 80 games, Martin averaged nearly 24 points per game. Yet as great a scorer as he's always been, he's always toiled on bad teams (he's made one Playoff appearance, in 2006). Now, healthy and on by far the best team he's ever played with, I'm curious to see how well he fits in with the Thunder.John Wall: As solid as he's been (career 16 and 8) we've all been waiting for Wall to make the leap and we're still waiting. He has the gifts, though to be fair, he hasn't had the help. He does now.Greg Monroe: The durable (has missed two games in the last two seasons) center in Detroit doesn't get a lot of headlines, but he averaged 15.4 ppg and 9.7 rpg last season, and seems poised to break out and become one of the NBA's few elite centers.\n\nTHESE FOUR TEAMS WON'T WIN THE TITLE, BUT THEY WILL BE WORTH WATCHING\n\nIndiana: Last season the Pacers finished eighteen games over .500, were third in the East, and put a brief scare into Miami in the second round. This year they have a chance to build off that momentum. Also, love the overlooked work of coach Frank Vogel.Philly: They were just barely a playoff team last season, got lucky when the Bulls lost D-Rose and reached the second round. This summer, they were one of the overlooked teams in the big Dwight Howard deal--but it netted them the post presence they were lacking in Andrew Bynum. Which means Philly now has arguably the best center in the conference.Golden State: Keeping Steph Curry and Andrew Bogut healthy is paramount, but the Warriors have an intriguing roster (remember Klay Thompson), with athleticism at every position.Utah: The Jazz could still upgrade their backcourt, but their frontcourt is stocked with lively bigs (Al Jefferson, Derrick Favors, Enes Kanter, Paul Millsap). Expectations are low, but the Jazz always seem to have a way of making themselves relevant.\n\nSIX NBA PLAYERS TO FOLLOW ON TWITTER\n\nEnes Kanter: @Enes_Kanter\u2014Twitter bio: \"Telekenesis!!!\"Tony Allen: @AAOOOG9\u2014Twitter bio: \"The Official Twitter Page of Tony Allen. From Chicago. Former Oklahoma State star. 2008 NBA Champion. Currently grinding for the Memphis Grizzlies.\"Nick Collison: @nickcollison4\u2014Twitter bio: \"Nick Collison, OKC Thunder; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM \" (Fans of Nick's GQ guest column last year will be pleased to hear he'll be back for another tour of duty. Get your zombie apocalypse questions ready.)Metta World Peace: @MettaWorldPeace\u2014 Twitter bio: \"Manager\"JaVale McGee\" @JaValeMcGee34\u2014Twitter bio: \"Pierre=Alter Ego 5th year in NBA for the Denver Nuggets I RT myself cuz what i say is that important! and cuz i can\"Kendall Marshall: @kbutter5\u2014Twitter bio: \"Brother. Son. Sun. I once climbed a mountain, just to see how tall it was. #PassFir5t\"\n\nGREAT QUOTES FROM THE PRESEASON, VOLUME 3\n\n 80. Charles Barkley, on the Lakers utilizing elements of the Princeton offense this season: \"I've always said I want my accountants from Princeton, not my offense.\"\n\nSOME RULE CHANGES TO WATCH THIS SEASON\n\nFlopping: At long last, the NBA is cracking down on the scourge of \"flopping,\" lest the NBA become Serie A soccer or something.Shorter handshakes: The NBA has limited pregame handshake routines to 90 seconds, or the amount of time it took some of the players to choreograph their handshake routines.According to the Boston Globe, \"officials will emphasize the &amp;amp;#x2018;Reggie Miller rule' for a shooter who kicks his legs out during jump-shot attempts to create contact and draw fouls. Officials plan to call offensive fouls on shooters who blatantly kick out their legs to initiate contact.\" I'm pretty sure kicking out your legs while shooting has been against the rules for a while; they've only just now decided to start looking for this as a foul.Also, from that same article, instead of T'ing up guys who were angry and would throw basketballs off the support stanchions, now officials say they will \"only call technicals on players who disrupt the game or toss balls that distract fans.\" Toss balls that distract fans? Does that mean that mean every free throw from Dwight Howard will now draw a T?Also, remember all that talk about ads on uniforms? Well, it's not going to happen, at least not this season, because according to at least one report, the owners couldn't decide how to split up the extra cash.\n\nMUSCLEWATCH 2012&amp;amp;#x99;\n\nMuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99; is the brainchild of me and my friend Matt. It all began many years ago, way back in the mid-&amp;amp;#x2018;90s, when we were both living in Atlanta. We noticed that our local paper had a funny tendency:&amp;amp;#xC2; whenever they reported that a player (either NBA or college) was returning for a new basketball season with more muscle, the player had always gained fifteen pounds of muslce. Not thirteen. Not sixteen. Not ten. Not twenty. Fifteen. It was always 15 pounds of muscle. So once Google came along, I started compiling a yearly compendium of the best and worst in preseason weight news over at my blog on SLAMonline in a segment I called MuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99;. And since I'm coming out of blogtirement this season for GQ, I thought it only reasonable that we resurrect it. Here are the NBA's biggest losers and gainers from this summer.Utah Jazz center Enes Kanter may have added some muscle in the offseason, but in MuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99;-land, the big story is that dude lost a whopping FIFTY-ONE pounds over the summer. How? By not eating the mountains of food he used to shovel down. His old diet apparently included a daily menu that featured items such as a 6-egg omelet, 8 pancakes with sugar, a breakfast burrito, two burgers, pasta, and so on and so on.This Clips Nation piece sort of anecdotally mentions that Eric Bledsoe has gained 10 pounds of muscle over the summer.Terrifying T-Wolves center NIkola Pekovic put on some weight this summer. Pekovic says he was trying to put on muscle and take off fat, which incidentally is the opposite of what the rest of us do.This SportsNet article is a bit vague, but it reports second-year Cavs forward Tristan Thompson has put on \"10-15 pounds\" of muscle.Grizz guard Mike Conley has added 12 pounds of \"very apparent muscle.\" I assume that means he added the muscles by buying them at Party City and attaching them via stapler. That's point guard savvy from Conley.The rules of MuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99; are not always clearly defined. For instance, according to the Toronto Star, Raptors big man Andrea Bargnani has added 15 pounds. But wait: fifteen pounds OF MUSCLE? We don't know for sure. The article doesn't explicitly state that this is 15 pounds of muscle, but it sure sounds like it. Coach Dwane Casey is quoted as saying, \"I'm really happy that he's come into camp in great shape, fifteen pounds heavier, stronger, but he's playing at that high level that we saw last year.\" Let's count it.Bucks forward Ersan Ilyasova, another guy who quietly had a great season last year, spent his summer at the beach in Florida pumping iron. According to this story, he's added fiften pounds, but again, it is not clear whether or not this was specifically muscle. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, because that's the kind of person that I am, and really, what else would it be? Mercury?Nuggets center JaVale McGee has long been one of the most interesting NBA players on the web (see #72 on this list, ie., the Twitter alter-ego named Pierre.) But as unorthodox as his game can be, McGee accords with other basketball clich&amp;amp;#xC3;&amp;amp;#xA9;s. For instance, he's right there in the MuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99; sweet spot: According to Mile High Sports, McGee appears to have added, yep, fifteen pounds of muscle.Finally, our MuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99; winners! Down in Charlotte, Tyrus Thomas has added \"about 20 pounds of muscle.\" However! I am invoking ecutive privilege and placing any MuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99; award for Thomas under review, because Thomas reveals in the same article that last season before camp he was hospitalized with stomach ulcers and he \"lost 20 pounds and never really gained it back.\" Hmm. Stay tuned.That means our winner is ... Sirs forward Thad Young, who added twenty pounds of what sure sounds like muscle. According to the Philly Daily News, or perhaps E.L. James, Young endured daily \"weightlifting sessions that severely swelled his upper body.\"\n\nCongratulations to Thaddeus Young, our official MuscleWatch&amp;amp;#x99; 2012 winner!\n\nSOME POINTLESSLY EARLY POSTSEASON GUESSES \n\nRookie of the Year. My guess is that it will not be the number one pick, Anthony Davis, mostly because he plays in the post and won't have the ball in his hands very often. For Davis, a very good season will be averaging a double-double, and those aren't the kind of shiny numbers that to award voters. So my guess is Wizards rookie Bradley Beal: a dead-eye long-range shooter who will be playing alongside the best point guard he's ever played with (John Wall). He'll get enough open looks to score a bunch of points.MVP. I've heard a lot of names mentioned--Durant, Kobe, former GQ intern Rajon Rondo. But I can't see anyone unseating the incumbent, LeBron James. He is the most talented player of this generation. He's the favorite every year.Besides, how many other 6-9, 280 pound guys can do something like this and make it look so easy?NBA Champion. Well, out West, I'm picking the Lakers, as much to motivate the Thunder as to pander to the notoriously web-happy Lakers fans. But honestly, I'm not sure it matters who comes out of the West. The Miami Heat seem to have figured out how to win with this roster, and they figured it out during the Finals last season, which should allow them to take that formula and re-apply it over and over throughout this season."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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