Skiles has played  noah, tyrus, and thabo, so it is possible to assume that he has an idea of what they are capable of, both good and bad. Take tyrus, on the one hand he gives you energy and hustle, and not to mention blocks and dunks that most humans cannot immitate. And yet, at the same time he is also the kind of player that commits a foul right after commiting the same foul. He still looks lost on defense, misses assignments, rushes his offense...etc.

The bulls need to get wins right now, and skiles is trying to get that done, its his main job. I know alot of people question alot of his moves, as do i, but one i do seem to understand is why thomas isnt played as much. With the bulls still struggling, playing tyrus might make things better, or dig a deeper hole for the bulls. Such is the same with any rookie.Lets also not forget that the power forward spot also contains the likes of Joe Smith (who despite being injury prone, and lacks stamina seems to be skiles go to forward), Nocioni(who should really just play sf, but is more often playing pf), thomas and noah (both who are fairly young players still learning the game).

Noch and Smith have been fairly consistent in what they bring to the table, so its easier to use those two before the newbies, and then it comes down to which newbie would do a better job helping the team win. Noah i think just gets the go ahead due to him being tall and because he has often been talked about working hard during practice.

Thomas i think will get more playtime near the end of the season, you can see him getting better since skiles threw him in teh dog house, so long as he is mentally able to handle skiles, i think skiles' old fashioned hard nose way of teaching is actually effective. Its just a matter of how long until he mentally wears down some of his students, which is a theory on what has happened to the bulls core, especially guys like gordon and deng (who are considering themselves stars) and kirk hinrich (who always seemed to have a low self confidence level).