Thibodeau meets his past in Chicago by facing the future

UPDATE PRE-GAME, 6:15 p.m.

Nemanja Bjelica is back and available to play tonight after he missed two games because of a sore ankle, but Bulls veteran point guard Rajon Rondo is out after he injured his ankle in practice on Tuesday.

The Bulls will start Jerian Grant instead. Point guard Michael Carter-Williams remains out for them because of a sprained wrist.

New Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau in Chicago this morning addressed a memorable past that is long gone and never to be forgotten before looking toward the future.

He arrives back at United Center to coach against his former Bulls team for the first time since he was fired in May 2015.

He does so with a 6-18 start to the Wolves' season that couldn't be any further from his first season in Chicago, when in his rookie year as a head coach the Bulls won 62 games and reached the Eastern Conference finals while young Derrick Rose won league MVP and Thibodeau won Coach of the Year.

He comes back to the arena he called home with a young team that can't hold onto repeated double-digit leads.

"That's sort of the nature of this league," Thibodeau said. "Nothing lasts forever and then you have to move on to the next challenge, which I am. But it's always good to come back here."

Asked if he thought tonight's game would be awkward, he said, "Not really because I've done it before. Leaving New York was hard, seven years there. Then Houston four years and Boston three. Over time because you've done it so many times, you know that's how it is and you accept whatever challenge you have. You look forward to that challenge and you do the best you can."

That challenge is to get a young team that's tied for the league's second-worst record to learn how to win.

"I love the group that I have," he said. "We have three guys who are 21 years old averaging 20 points a game in the NBA. That's not an easy thing to do and they're driven, they're hard-working. I think we'll get better as we go along but we have a lot of work to do. I knew that going it. That's what excites me about this challenge: To build every day, to get better and improve and hopefully we can do that."