Philadelphia 76ers: Pitting Matisse Thybulle against Robert Covington is pointless

Needlessly comparing Matisse Thybulle to Robert Covington is a waste of Philadelphia 76ers fans’ time, as the two play a very different brand of basketball.

You can’t be missed if you don’t go away;  It’s a time-worn adage that’s true for actors, true for bands, and most importantly of all, true for professional athletes.

With some time, a bit of distance, and the dulling effects of nostalgia, average players become good, good players become borderline Hall of Famers (Donovan McNabb, according to Donovan McNabb), and great players become immortal.

And even though it’s only been a year, Robert Covington has risen to cult hero status among a certain Twitter-centric set of Philadelphia 76ers fans.

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This fandom is wonderful, but using the memory of Covington to place unnecessary expectations on rookie Matisse Thybulle? That’s not cool.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Cov as much as the next guy, but comparing a 6-foot-9 combo-forward with seven-years in the league to a rookie shooting guard measuring in four inches shorter and six-years his junior?

That just doesn’t make sense.

While Covington and Thybulle can be used in a very similar way in Brett Brown‘s system and have a pension for ball-hawking an errant pass, the duo can only be marginally compared because of their different styles of play and responsibilities.

For all the praise heaped on Covington as a positionless defender, he often struggled to keep up with shifty, smaller point guards due to a lack of elite foot speed. While this, in large part, is to be expected for a player guarding down position, it was a consistent issue over his tenure with the team.

Thybulle, while far from Zhaire Smith or Ben Simmons athletically, is a much more natural backcourt defender – as evidenced by his dominance over the first week of the season.

Put Thybulle on at power forward? Now you’d have a problem, but for a team in desperate need for a guard-sized guard who can blanket other guard-sized guards, Thybulle is off to about as promising a start as any rookie the Sixers have had in recent memory (Simmons anyone?).

Really, the only thing truly comparable between Thybulle and Covington is their roles on offense, as both are asked to park it on the wings for catch and shoot 3s.

And that’s ok.

Thybulle’s success doesn’t take anything away from Covington, and vice versa. To be quite honest with you, Covington and Thybulle would have made an unstoppable wing tandem defensively, even if their combined 3 point shooting percentage would leave something to be desired.

Robert Covington is good. Matisse Thybulle is good. Both players are good. Healthy discourse is wonderful for community building, but expecting one player to perform exactly like another is a waste of time for Philadelphia 76ers fans, as they are more different than they are the same.