Philadelphia 76ers: Ready your shooter sleeve, Matisse Thybulle

Who should be the Philadelphia 76ers‘ fifth starter moving forward? That, my friends, has been the hot button issue among Philly fans the world over during this, a week without NBA basketball, and for good reason.

Outside of your galaxy brain concepts where the Sixers send one of their “core four” to the bench to serve as a sixth man, the general consensus appears to be Tyrese Maxey and James Harden in the backcourt, Joel Embiid in the painted area, and a fifth starter lined up next to Tobias Harris at the small forward spot.

But who could it be? Turning back to the general consensus, the optimal fifth starter appears to be a three-man race between Matisse Thybulle, Danny Green, and Georges Niang, with each presenting their own positives and negatives on the court.

Is there a correct answer among the trio? Honestly, no. Until Harden’s on-court fit goes from theoretical to Youtube-able, all the numbers in the world won’t tell the whole story.

With that being said, I think it’s pretty safe to say we know who will ultimately get the first crack at the small forward spot, be that for a week, the month of March, or the remainder of the regular season: Matisse Thybulle. If that’s the route the Philadelphia 76ers decide to go, and based on everything we’ve seen from Doc Rivers and the fact that Daryl Morey gave up two first-round picks to keep the Washington product in red, white, and blue, it would appear to be, “Matheif” had better get his shooter sleeve ready, as he’s going to attempt a lot of 3s moving forward.

Matisse Thybulle’s shooting will decide his role with the Philadelphia 76ers.

There’s no doubt about it; Matisse Thybulle is a double-edged sword for the Philadelphia 76ers.

When he’s on, he can legitimately change the tenor of a game like few others, but when his defense is just great instead of flat-out elite, his deficiencies become glaring.

Think back, if you will, to seemingly any game where Thybulle started alongside Joel Embiid, Seth Curry, Tyrese Maxey, and Tobias Harris against a team with a head coach looking to scheme himself a win. What routinely happens in said contests? Well, if you answered with some variation of “the opposing team doubles Embiid before he even touches the basket and leaves Thybulle wide open in the corner,” then you, my friend, are correct.

Now granted, did this defensive strategy still happen when Thybulle was off the court? Sure, Embiid is so freakin’ good that there are almost no defenders in the NBA who can go toe-to-toe against him one-on-one for 34 minutes of action, but when the team’s fifth starter is a shooter like Furkan Korkmaz, Danny Green, or even Isaiah Joe, that becomes a whole lot harder to do.

Why? Because when they let the 3 ball fly, it goes in a whole lot more often than when Thybulle attempts them.

After making 35.7 percent of his 3s as a rookie, Thybulle’s deep efficiency has dropped with each passing season despite attempting roughly the same number of shots (2.2-2.4) per game. Mind you, Thybulle is supplementing his offensive production with more cuts to the basket and a few transition dunks for good measure, bringing his points per game up to a career-high 5.6, but when a team has Embiid in the painted area, I think most would happily trade .9 of Thybulle’s points for a league-average 3 point shot.

Need proof? Well, look no further than the Sixers’ final game before the All-Star Break. Thybulle was in his usual starting spot at small forward – his 28th start of the season – and his play was just off. His defense wasn’t up to his usual standard, and after turning in just one rebound, one assist, one block, one turnover, and one missed 3 in 14 minutes of action, Doc Rivers pulled his small forward at halftime in favor of Korkmaz “starting” the third quarter. And guess what? It worked. Korkmaz finished out the game with 13 points on 3-4 shooting from 3 and had a plus-minus of +18 in 29 minutes, versus Thybulle’s -14 in 14.

Would rolling with Korkmaz, or Green, or Isaiah Joe, or even Georges Niang at small forward magically make the Sixers’ offense work a la Rivers’ halftime adjustment? Situationally, it’s possible, but as a general rule, the answer is no; Thybulle is just too valuable on defense to simply bench him forever – he ranks sixth league-wide in Defensive Raptor after all – and there will come games or even playoff series where his play could be the deciding factor.

If Thybulle can start hitting 3s at a 35.7 percent clip once more, then yeah, his insertion into the starting lineup would be a no-brainer. But if he continues to struggle? Well, he might still be the best choice at small forward too; it just depends how well the two-man game between Joel Embiid and James Harden can fare moving forward.

I mean, think about it, back in Houston, most of James Harden’s partners on the wings weren’t Kyle Korvers. Sure, he had a few, Ben McLemore, Danuel House, and Ryan Anderson all turned in high-volume seasons where they made 40-plus percent of their attempts from beyond the arc in the Space City, but from 2012-20, the Rockets ranked 15th in 3 point shooting percentage, and never ranked higher than ninth. But what the team routinely ranked near the top of the association at, if not first overall, was 3 point attempts, with an average of 35.5 per game over that same tenure.

If Thybulle, Maxey, and Harris can attempt enough 3s to make opposing teams pay for focusing their defensive efforts on Embiid and Harden, then yeah, that quintet might just be the one to go with moving forward, but if any of the trio opt to forgo open 3s for contested 2s, waste time dribbling out of open looks, or brick every single shot they put up, well then that, my friends, might be when a change takes place.

Will Matisse Thybulle ever become an elite 3 point shooter? No. While there are examples of players who went from horrible and/or non-shooters to efficient ones – the Lopez Brothers Brock and Robin come to mind – most are either centers who just didn’t take 3s or a very rare breed indeed. To this point in his career, with 189 total games under his belt between the playoffs and the regular season, Thybulle has attempted 443 total 3s and made exactly 141 of them for a completion percentage of 31.8. If he can get that number up to 35 percent, which would require a pretty hot streak to close out the season, then Thybulle might just be the Philadelphia 76ers’ long-term starting small forward of the future. But if not? Well, he’ll be a defensive sixth man who will struggle to live up to the two first-round picks Daryl Morey could have had instead. Sounds sort of dire, right? Well, at least Thybulle will have plenty of open looks to get his shot going, as he’ll seldom have a man covering him when Joel Embiid and James Harden are cooking.