"It's tough to lose a guy like Ben who can put the ball in the basket," Del Negro admitted. "He bailed us out a lot at the end of games. Other guys are going to have to step up and make plays. We're going to have to be more efficient in other areas to make up for that loss. Derrick Rose has to continue to develop along with Joakim (Noah) and Tyrus (Thomas), our young core. We just have to try and build on the momentum we got last year.

"Every year is a different challenge. We still have a young team and got two new draft picks in James Johnson and Taj Gibson. We are trying to build on the momentum at the end of last year, but understand that we have still a lot of growing to do as a team. Adding John Salmons and Brad Miller, some veteran guys to go with Kirk Hinrich, really stabilized us a little bit, but there's still a lot of work to be done."