Philadelphia 76ers: Matisse Thybulle needs to steal a starting spot

The Philadelphia 76ers know who Danny Green is.

While goose eggs have started to appear on his gamelog with greater frequency than in years prior, Green remains a viable rotation wing who can shoot a bunch if 3s, play a little D, and switch out on opposing players 1-3 even if he’s not quite as light on his feet as in seasons prior.

Outside of the occasional “Danny Green Game,” where he drains a half dozen threes on over 50 percent efficiency, a team that starts Green pretty much knows what they’ll get from the 13th year pro in any given game.

Matisse Thybulle as a starter, by contrast, is more of a mystery.

Despite appearing in 154 professional games, Thybulle has only started 23, with two coming in the playoffs and 14 more occurring during his rookie season. Even as his game has elevated considerably with each passing season, almost all of Thybulle’s production has come off the bench, where he can enter a game as a defensive sparkplug at an opportune time.

Can Matisse Thybulle maintain that level of impact if afforded an opportunity to start games off from the opening tip? We shall soon find out, as Danny Green is reportedly expected to be out “for some time” and the Philadelphia 76ers will likely turn to number 22 to fill his spot indefinitely.

Matisse Thybulle has a chance to prove his worth to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Matusse Thybulle has started off his 2021-22 season with the Philadelphia 76ers with a boom.

Credit it to the momentum of meddling in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics – which technically happened this year – or just a ton of work refining his offensive game, but Thybulle’s once limited offensive game has started to blossom, with some on-court confidence being a welcomed byproduct of said development.

Though the sample size is still relatively small, Thybulle is averaging 5.1 points in 24.1 minutes of action, while hitting 51.5 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from beyond the arc. He’s hit a 3 in five of the team’s nine games, a feat he only accomplished 32 times in 65 tries, and has become a more comfortable finisher around the hoop on both layups and dunks.

Do teams still play him soft on the wings, especially when Embiid is cooking in the paint? Yes, that reputation will stick with the pride of the University of Washington for at least the immediate future, but if he continues to hit shots just below the league average of 35 percent, that will eventually change.

Oh yeah, and he’s still making plays like the one below, how could I forget?

Man, we haven’t seen a down under jam like that since… when you know who wore a red, white, and blue uniform.

So, if Thybulle remains one of the best perimeter defenders in the Association and a pickpocket worthy of his very well done Halloween costume, what can he do to steal that starting spot away from Danny Green once and for all?

Just score a few more points.

In his first two starts of the season, Thybulle has averaged 6.5 points, two steals, and 2.5 blocks in 34 minutes of action a night. He’s shot okay from the field, hitting 5-11 from the field and 3-7 from beyond the arc, and picked up two assists versus one turnover as one of the team’s surprising transition playmakers.

If Thybulle can just keep that level of play up over the next few games – or until Green returns – even Doc Rivers will have trouble keeping Thybulle out of the starting five.

Does it stink to lose your job due to injury? Yes. That very topic has been a fixture of sports radio for years now and will remain a popular subject until the medium is jettisoned into the sun alongside 8-tracks and writing in cursive, but it’s undeniable that one player’s loss can be another’s gain, especially if they run with a bigger opportunity. Whether Matisse Thybulle starts the remainder of the Philadelphia 76ers games or has to wait a little longer for his chance to shine, it’s more of a ‘when’ not ‘if’ he eventually joins the starting lineup on a permanent basis.