Philadelphia 76ers: No, Matisse Thybulle shouldn’t be untouchable

Matisse Thybulle is a really good basketball player. He is an elite defender, an unconventional stat stuffer, and I have it on good authority that he does, in fact, know ball.

While Thybulle’s game is beyond uneven, and he may never truly become a do-it-all player, he’s an elite defender in a league of his own on the perimeter who could be useful on any team across the NBA even if his offensive game never develops beyond cutters, dunks, and the occasional open 3.

Are the Philadelphia 76ers a better team with Thybulle on their roster? Yes. Could he be a fixture of the team for years to come? Yes as well, but in the correct package, he shouldn’t be untouchable either.

Why? Because the Philadelphia 76ers only have two untouchable players, and they are Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.

The Philadelphia 76ers shouldn’t hang up the phone when Matisse Thybulle is mentioned.

When Matisse Thybulle is on the court with shooters, he’s a really good player. When he’s allowed to play fast and loose alongside players like Tyrese Maxey and Andre Drummond (more on that here), Thybulle can be a really good basketball player too.

But when Thybulle is in the halfcourt offense, against a savvy team, no less, he can become a serious problem that limits the Sixers’ ceiling and destroys their spacing.

Seriously, of the nine five-man lineups the Sixers have played for at least 20 minutes that have a negative net rating, Thybulle is featured in four of them. While Thybulle alone isn’t to blame for these issues, if anything, Doc Rivers deserves some blame for overly relying on lineups that consistently put his team at a deficit, his inability to space the field has led to more than a few ugly minutes where barely a point can be found on the offensive end of the court.

Mind you, when Tybulle is on top of his game, it’s pretty hard to score on him too, as he holds opposing shooters to the lowest shooting percentage of any perimeter defender in the NBA, but that doesn’t particularly matter if he has to be held out of the end of a close playoff game because the defender simply ignores him in favor of doubling Joel Embiid in the paint.

Now riddle me this, how many other untouchable players have that same sort of schematic restriction? How many truly untouchable players, which I would suggest is less than 50 players league-wide, have to have their minutes staggered with their team’s best player in order to keep their offensive identity intact?

Yeah, I’d go with none of them.

Now granted, that doesn’t mean the Sixers should simply flip Thybulle for a second-rounder. Again, he’s a really good young player with one more year of his rookie contract and is one of only a small percentage of NBA players who can genuinely state with authenticity that they have an elite trait. But do you know what? If Thybulle could swing a deal with, say, the Boston Celtics that swapped out Jaylen Brown and Dennis Schroder for Ben Simmons and picks, Daryl Morey would be foolish to say no.

I mean think about it, Brown is a two-way wing who can defend at a very good to great level while also balling out OK offense. Pairing him up with Thybulle would certainly form a dynamic duo that gives opposing players fits, but the team would be similarly good with a Danny Green-Jaylen Brown duo with the added bonus of another 3 point shooter.

The same could be said for a deal centered around a player like, say, Damian Lillard. I know the Lillard trade train has sort of left the station, but if the Blazers wanted to field a last-minute trade offer to the Sixers of their franchise guy plus Robert Covington for Simmons, Thybulle, and two firsts, would Morey really hang up the phone?

As long as the team gets back another great-to-elite defender in a trade, Thybulle’s inclusion in a hypothetical deal shouldn’t give the Sixers much pause in their star hunting pursuits, especially if the player in question can contribute on both ends of the court.

The biggest difference between Tyrese Maxey and Matisse Thybulle is potential. Maxey’s game has been developing at a rapid rate the likes of which we haven’t seen in South Philadelphia since 2016, and trading him away now before he’s a finished product would be crazy, as Doc Rivers confirmed to Kentucky college coach John Calipari. Thybulle, by contrast, hasn’t taken much of a leap on the offensive end of the court and, at almost 25-years-old, will probably see his ceiling top off at elite defensive specialist. While having that guy around is valuable, it isn’t more valuable than a fully-fledged star or a player right on the cusp of hitting that ceiling. Thus, he shouldn’t be considered untouchable by the Philadelphia 76ers.