Bulls Open Pre-Season Tonight

By Benjy Lipsman on Oct 12, 2004 7:22PM

The Bulls unveil their 2004-2005 lineup tonight when they take on the Boston Celtics in Manchester, N.H. in their first pre-season game.

Following a week of training camp, Bulls rookies Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni and Chris Duhon will get their first chance to play against NBA competition. Bulls also have lots of newcomers in camp this season -- Othella Harrington, Frank Williams and Cezary Trybanski came from the Knicks as part of the Jamal Crawford trade and Adrian Griffin, Eric Piatkowski, and Mike Wilks came from Houston for Dikembe Mutombo, who also had also been part of the Knicks deal.

The returning core nucleus remains Tyson Chandler, whose back is hopefully healthy again; Eddie Curry, who is down to 285 lbs.; and Kirk Hinrich, who hopes to build upon a very solid rookie season at point guard.

It's now been 6 season since the Bulls won their last title. They've averaged less than 20 wins a season since. Will this season finally be the one where the Bulls return to respectablilty? Last season, many sports writers thought they were a playoff team once again and the Bulls proved them wrong. Don't think many are going to make that same mistake twice! Will this be the year? Chicagoist still doesn't think so. But all the young 'uns and the removal of Jamal Crawford will make for an exciting, if not successful team.