The Sacramento Kings tip off their 2012-13 campaign in the Windy City on Wednesday, taking on the Chicago Bulls. The game will begin at 5 p.m. Pacific, and Comcast SportsNet will have live TV coverage. (HD, too, of course.)

Most of the league is in action on Wednesday, and the Bulls are a team lots of folks will be wondering about. The East's No. 1 seed in each of the past two seasons, the Bulls are without Derrick Rose for the time being as he recovers from ACL repair surgery. He might be back in December or January, or he might be back in time for the 2013-14 season. No one knows. But he won't be back for Wednesday's game. So the Kings will face a Bulls team led by Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, Carlos Boozer and Kirk Hinrich.

We still don't know exactly who Keith Smart will run out there in the starting five, but I think most of us would guess that DeMarcus Cousins, Tyreke Evans and James Johnson will be involved. I'd bet on Jason Thompson and Isaiah Thomas joining them, but we'll see.

We'll have a game thread at 5 p.m. in the cover and in this stream. We're trying to roll with one game thread — if things slow down and get bloated, we'll go back to two in future games. Also be sure to check out our quick recap after the game, which will double as a dance/bemoan thread.