Philadelphia 76ers: How Matisse Thybulle has made himself untouchable

There are games where Matisse Thybulle is nothing more than a minor footnote on the Philadelphia 76ers‘ final box score, literally.

Through his first 34 games of the 2020-21 NBA season, Thybulle has scored zero points in nine different games and put up four or fewer points in 11 more. He’s never recorded more than four assists in a single game this season – a feat he only accomplished once – and is more likely to record zero rebounds (eight) than he is four or more (five).

So naturally, it’s not hard to see why some “stat line Hercule Poirot“-s would consider Thybulle an expendable piece the Sixers should sell high on before the rest of the league figures that out, as opposed to an untouchable asset worthy of building around long-term, because, in a way, they are right. Thybulle isn’t the kind of player who shows up on a traditional box score, wins awards, or gets recognized for his efforts all that often.

What he is, though, is arguably the best player on the Sixers’ bench at consistently making a difference on a game’s outcome, and that, my friends, is rapidly making him untouchable in any but the most field-leveling of trades.

The Philadelphia 76ers are just cracking Matisse Thybulle’s surface.

More from Section 215

If you told me, or really any fan back in December, that Matisse Thybulle would be a borderline lock for the Philadelphia 76ers’ playoff rotation, you’d surely be met with some weird reactions.

Thybulle was coming off of a training camp marred by injury, and he’d only averaged 1.8 points, a rebound, and .4 steals in an average of 9.1 minutes of action per game. With “Tyrese Maxey fever” still very much a thing and the bench’s lack of scoring already starting to rear its ugly head, some openly questioned whether Thybulle was a misfit for Doc Rivers‘ style of play.

And hey, I’ll be the first to admit, I thought it too.

But since returning to the team/rotation after a three-game absence due to a spot on the COVID-19 list, Thybulle’s overall game has been night and day versus his initial offerings, much to the chagrin of fans in the 215.

Over the last 25 games, Thybulle has averaged 3.9 points, 1.7 rebounds, 1.8 steals, a block, and a rebound a game. The Sixers are a +1 when Thybulle is on the court, and his defensive abilities have earned the young guard a .08 defensive win shares, which is the 16th highest mark of a player averaging 19 or fewer minutes per game.

Are any of those numbers particularly impressive on their own? Outside of the steals and blocks figures, not really, but when you throw them all together, in addition to his +2.4 FiveThirtyEight RAPTOR rating, you get a player who glues the rest of the roster together like few others in the NBA right now.

Fun facts: Only one guard, T.J. McConnell, is averaging more steals since January 1st than Thybulle, and no guard has as many blocks per game on average.

Now sure, Thybulle’s offensive game is about as consistent as a broken clock. Even if he’s locking down would-be scorers one-through-four on the defensive end of the court, fans will roll their eyes whenever he passes up an open look in the name of “ball movement” and that, unfortunately, happens far too often for a player with 100 games under his belt.

With that being said, is there a player on the Sixers who keeps their eyes locked on the ball better than Thybulle?

Whether looking to pickpocket a careless ball handler on-ball, picking off an errant pass off-ball, or even positioning himself to block a shot attempt while it’s in the air, Thybulle plays basketball like an NFL cornerback; and even looks like an NFL cornerback if we’re being honest. Like a good corner, Thybulle will seldom lead his team in any statistical category outside of maybe takeaways, but his performances pass the eye test and change the way opposing coaches dictate their offense.

Heck, Thybulle is even a beast in zone coverage, which is an NFL staple for instinctive defenders who like to play the ball in the air. Has Thybulle missed his calling?

How often do ball handlers bailout of a shot when Thybulle is their on-ball defender? Where does that show up on a stat sheet? How about Thybulle’s abilities allowing Rivers to utilize Simmons as a matchup piece instead of a one-size-fits-all number one defender? Or that Thybulle can take on most of Simmons’ assignments when he exits the game and allows Rivers a variety of alternative lineups that remain defensively functional. Surely those facets of Thybulle’s game make up for his 3.6 field goal attempts per game, right?

If Thybulle can just take a few more shots per game and average roughly 8.5 points per game, he could seamlessly take over for Danny Green in the Sixers’ starting five and boost the unit’s defensive acumen significantly without killing their offensive firepower (more on that here).

But even now, roughly midway through his three-year, $8.13 million contract, Thybulle has already played far above his meager draft status and could see a noticeably pay raise in the ballpark of $18.22 million per year according to FiveThirtyEight’s market value projection, an evaluation that will only go up if he continues to put in performances like his 13 points-five steals two-way master class versus the Chicago Bulls.

To put things through a creative Millennial lens, I think we’re seeing Thybulle fully evolve from a basketball Squirtle to Wartortle, with a Blastoise-esque glow-up not too far over the horizon.

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The Philadelphia 76ers’ Friday Night bout against the Washington Wizards officially marks Matisse Thybulle’s 100th regular season NBA game. While there have been a lot of ups and a lot of downs in that period for the team, the players, and our society as a whole, Thybulle’s development from a quirky 2-3 zone statistical anomaly into a legitimate All-Defense candidate has been one of the more thrilling aspects of the Sixers’ mini-rebuild. Even if the team could swap him out for a better shooter, or a more well-rounded overall player, is that development really worth giving up on now, so early into his career? No, much like his defensive partner in crime, Ben Simmons, Thybulle is an NBA unicorn that you simply can’t swap out unless a legitimate Hall of Fame-level talent is coming back.