Matisse Thybulle’s Sixers Teammate Demands More Threes
For the last few seasons, Philadelphia 76ers’ 2019 first-round pick Matisse Thybulle has established himself as one of the NBA’s best perimeter defenders.
Despite starting in just 72 of the 196 career games he’s appeared in a while averaging fewer than 26 minutes through three seasons, Thybulle has earned All-Defensive Second Team honors in 2021 and 2022.
As long as Thybulle remains a menace on the defensive side of the ball, the young standout will have a spot in the Sixers’ rotation. But last year, Thybulle and the Sixers ran into some significant issues due to the defensive standout’s lack of offensive contributions.
Offensively, Thybulle averaged five points per game while playing a career-high of 25 minutes per matchup. From beyond the arc, Thybulle hit 31 percent of his shots, just one-percent better than the previous year, which serves as his career-low.
After the regular season, Thybulle appeared in nine postseason matchups and played ten fewer minutes per game. His scoring average dropped to three points, as did his three-point percentage, which dipped to 28.
Going into the offseason, it was clear Thybulle needed to improve his offensive skill set to maintain a spot in Philadelphia’s rotation after a summer of upgrading the roster. The fourth-year veteran earned praise from his head coach for being one of the hardest working players in the offseason.
But talk is cheap in the NBA. So far, Thybulle hasn’t received an opportunity to put his offensive improvements on public display, but his coaches and teammates received a look at his newfound offensive confidence over the past week in training camp.
Thybulle’s All-Star teammate Joel Embiid talked about how impressed he is with Thybulle through a handful of practices. Doc Rivers also liked what he saw out of the young wing. And according to Thybulle, his confidence to launch threes — whether he’s missing or making them — comes from his teammate Tobias Harris, who issued Thybulle a challenge.
“Tobias (Harris) challenged me to just shoot and live with whatever the results were,” said Thybulle, according to Ky Carlin of the Sixers Wire. “He and some of the other guys have come up to me like, ‘You’ve put in the work. Now just go do it and live with whatever happens.”
Thybulle’s never been a high-volume shooter. Through his first three NBA seasons, Thybulle has averaged just two shots from beyond the arc per game. Even in college, where Thybulle averaged 35 percent from deep over four seasons, he put up just four threes per game.
While the Sixers don’t need Thybulle to transition into a high-volume, 40 percent shooter, they would like to see more scoring consistency out of him. And for Thybulle to get there, he knows that simply launching shots without fearing the results is the way to help himself.
“I made a couple, but for me, it’s about taking the shots,” Thybulle finished, per Carlin. “It’s not really the challenge, but the initiation. Give myself permission to shoot these shots because I’m capable.”
Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for All76ers, a Sports Illustrated channel. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.
