I'm sure this has been pointed out many times on the site. I'm just understanding this..

as for my second point, tyrus has to prove he is ready to play at the nba level night in and night out.  has he????  no, so what does skiles owe tyrus???  nothing.   tyrus himself isnt even getting upset with a lack of minutes.  do you honestly think skiles isnt playing ty because he is in his "dog-house"??  you cant get to where skiles is at coaching that way.  this isnt hoosiers for christ sake.  he isnt playing him because tyrus isn't going to give us a chance to win when he is blowing defensive assignments and looking lost on offense.  with noc bg and kirk turning the ball over at an alarming rate, we dont need another guy out there who has a tendency to be a TO machine.  stop calling for more tyrus and more wins at the same time, its not going to happen.   because with everyone else playing like crap, a healthy dose of tyrus is not the answer, unless you want to keep losing.  he isn't there yet folks, maybe you should take the coaches word for it.  i dont know, skiles only sees him play and practice every f###ing day, he might know what he is doing a little bit more than all us bloggers

The bigger salary rules in this case, because somebody's credibility was on the line.

For some reason, Ben Wallace certainly has been very healthly.

Coaches, GM, personnel directors, etc forced to play lots of money feel less discomfort while the overestimated player is on DL because you are not consistently reminded of the hugh financial mistake based on their day-in-day out game play.

Bears now can see what the other reserve running backs can do during this loss season?

The biggest thing that's turned me around on this is his strange refusal to play Noah and Tyrus Thomas at the same time.

In and of itself, that's a logically defensible position based on the fact that having two young big guys out there is typically a recipe for disaster. Quick fouls, bad defense, you name it. But that logical defense goes out the window when your veteran alternatives are mediocre at best, your team doesn't appear to be going anywhere, and, most obviously, instead of playing two young big guys (Thomas and Noah), you're playing two young big guys (Thomas and Gray).

Robbed of an obvious logic, going out of the way to not play these guys together just makes it seem that Skiles is just going on the basis of stubbornness. What it reminds me of in particular is a few years ago when Bill Cartwright spent 3/4ths of a season playing Jay Williams and Jamal Crawford, our two most promising guys by far, with every combination of shitty players he could think of except each other. When they finally did play together, they actually played fairly well, especially by the extremely low standards of the time. They were certainly better than the alternatives. Which is the point.

So return that point to Skiles and look at the context of this season. At this point, even if we sneak into the playoffs, I don't see a lot of hope for the Bulls being competitive with the best teams in the East, let alone the West. Barring some sort of extreme stroke of fortune, the successful development of Tyrus and Noah is the only major means I see of improving this team. Sure, we can expect some improvement from our other young players, but I'm talking about major leaps here.

That doesn't mean we should dish out the entitlement minutes, but I do have a major problem with what appears to be a completely illogical aversion to giving it a go with our two most important frontcourt prospects.

To wit, I calculated it up and Noah and Thomas have logged a total of 17.18 minutes of court time together. Gray and Thomas have logged 16.43 minutes together.

The Bulls tend to play Thomas with Wallace; 62% of his minutes have come with him, 20% with Smith, and 9% with Nocioni. 7% with Gray and 5% with Noah.

The Bulls tend to play Noah with anyone. Except Thomas. 26% with Nocioni, 25% with Wallace, 23% with Smith and 19% with Gray. Only 8% of his minutes have come with Thomas.

In other words, Skiles is pretty sure these guys are substitutes and not complements. Out of all the frontcourt guys we've got, Noah and Thomas appear to be the least likely to play together.