Will The London Trip Hamper The Bulls?

In 1990, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan took his team to Japan to open the NBA regular season against the Suns. Sloan said, “I remember when we got back, our players looked like they had played 80 games already and the season had just started. It took us three weeks to get our legs under us.” The Bulls’ eight-hour flight home Wednesday doesn’t come close to Utah’s 14-hour flight. But with Derrick Rose and Tyrus Thomas out of the lineup because of injuries, John Salmons attending to his pregnant wife, and Aaron Gray out for a couple of weeks (stress fracture in leg), and rookies James Johnson and Taj Gibson still learning the game at the pro level, is acclimation an issue for the Bulls? Chicago coach Vinny Del Negro quickly squashed that question by saying “Because it’s so early in the exhibition season, we’ll be fine. We’re taking Thursday off, which should get our body clocks right. Then we can have a good practice Friday, play the (exhibition Saturday against Milwaukee) in Green Bay and, by then, we should be acclimated. That gives us plenty of time before the (regular-season) opener.” Playing a game in another continent is never ideal during training camp, however, players usually praise the experience as unifying and fun.

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