Matisse Thybulle was showing himself to be one of the top rookies in the NBA with his play for the Philadelphia 76ers until a leg injury sidelined him. How long can he be out and not damage his chances of making the All-Rookie team or even NBA Rookie of the Year consideration.
A first-round pick who stayed completely healthy is an occurrence Philadelphia 76ers fans have not experienced in a long time.
In what either is an amazing set of circumstances or a Rookie Curse, as some call it, the last SEVEN players who were the highest pick in that year’s draft who played for the Sixers that season (some were acquired in draft-night trades) failed to complete an entire season for the club.
The last 76ers first-round pick to be available generally for the whole season was Nikola Vucevic in 2011. And he only played in 51 games (and one playoff game) because coach Doug Collins did not think he could handle NBA competition.
You have to go back to 2010 and Evan Turner for the last Sixers rookie to play most of the season and be a contributor in his rookie year.
That, frankly, is pretty crazy.
Matisse Thybulle certainly worked his way into the rotation for the Sixers in quick fashion.
From the moment he stepped on the court for the Sixers, the 6-foot-5 wing out of Washington has been a defensive menace to opponents.
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With a long wing-span, quick feet and great recovery ability, for a while Thybulle led the entire NBA in steals despite playing much less than the others in the top 10 (He is currently 16th, with Ben Simmons No. 1)
After suffering through years of wings who were basically human turnstiles defensively, Sixers fans delighted in Thybulle swatting away jump shots or, if a guard drove past him, seeing the shock on their face as Thybulle would strip them from behind.
Thybulle was advertised as a defensive specialist when he was selected by Boston with the No. 20 pick (and then traded to Philly in a move Bill Simmons is still upset about). After all, he averaged just 9.2 points a game his senior year with the Huskies and shot 30 percent from the shorter collegiate 3-point line, so offense was obviously not his calling card.
However, after a rough patch, Thybulle has emerged as a deadly three-point shooter. His shooting percentage from beyond the arc is a sparkling 43.8 percent (the league average is 35 percent).
A young, defensive-oriented wing player who can hit the open ‘3’ is exactly what general manager Elton Brand was looking for when he swung the trade (fleecing?) with the Celtics.
But then The Curse reared its ugly head.
In basically garbage time at the end of the Dec. 21 game against the Washington Wizards, Thybulle got entangled with Troy Brown Jr. The official prognosis was not good:
#sixers rookie Matisse Thybulle is out indefinitely with a right knee sprain and a bone bruise. He will be re-evaluated in approximately 2 weeks.
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) December 22, 2019
The injury is the result of a hyperextension suffered late in the 4th quarter of last night's win over the Wizards.
Not that there is any good time to have a promising rookie be sidelined for an extended period, but this was particularly untimely. The Sixers have to play the monster game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Christmas Day followed by a rough four-game road trip at Orlando (where they have already lost once), plus toughies in Indiana, Houston and Miami. They will now have to go through this gauntlet without their top defensive substitute.
This will be the first major test for the new 76ers medical staff. Brand jettisoned the old crew after a bunch of players went out with injuries that could have been preventable in hindsight.
(Interesting coincidence: One of them, Dr. Daniel Medina, was hired by the Wizards, who just received a waiver to expand its roster due to a large number of injuries).
The most optimistic result would be Thybulle returning for the Jan. 6 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Of course, the Sixers do not have a history of quick-healing players so who knows when Thybulle will actually come back.
Besides the effect on the team, another question is will his missing games mid-season matter at the end of the season when the NBA Rookie of the Year and All-Rookie teams are announced?
In 2017, everyone recognized that Joel Embiid was the top first-year player. However, he only played 31 games due to injury and the Bucks’ Malcolm Brogdon was named Rookie of the Year. Embiid came in third in the voting, with teammate Dario Saric finishing second.
Embiid and Saric did make first team All-Rookie along with Brogdon, the Kings’ Buddy Hield and Willy Hernangomez of the New York Knicks (who was chosen over Jamal Murray, Jaylen Brown and Brandon Ingram, among others).
Thybulle has already played in 30 games so, barring some surprising setback (which has happened before), Thybulle should by the end of the season play in a lot more games than Embiid’s 31.
The other reason that could hurt Thybulle getting postseason honors is the fact he is on a really, really good team.
Brand and coach Brett Brown have each stated that teams do not win championships playing a lot of young players. Brown has kept Thybulle on a short leash. When the Sixers had trouble with zone defenses, Brown moved Furkan Korkmaz and Trey Burke over Thybulle in the rotation the next few games — even though Thybulle has a better three-point shooting percentage than both of them.
Traditionally, Rookie of the Year and All-Rookie candidates come from bad teams where they can rack up gaudy statistics (see Carter-Williams, Michael) as they play a lot since development is more important than wins on those teams.
The 2019 Rookie of the Year, Luka Doncic, was on a Dallas Mavericks team that went 33-49. But the 2018 ROY was the Sixers’ Ben Simmons (despite Donovan Mitchell’s protests) and they went 52-30, while Brogdon’s Bucks team was a mediocre 42-40.
Being a role player on a title contender, and a player who is best on the defensive end, Thybulle is not going to have eye-popping statistics. Before the injury, he was averaging 4.8 points,1.4 steals, and 0.7 blocks in 17.6 minutes of playing time.
The havoc he wreaks on the defensive end, the boost of energy he gives the team, the spacing he allows on offense with his outside shooting, and the lineup options he gives Brown in a game can not be quantified on a stat sheet.
Before the season, Rookie of the Year was almost conceded to Zion Williamson of the Pelicans. Most of his games were going to be on National TV due to fan interest. However, a knee injury has not allowed him to play a single game and there is no set date for his return as of Dec. 24. (It has also caused a lot of games of a bad Pelicans team to be inflicted on the country, which is a factor in slumping TV ratings).
In the latest NBA.com Rookie Ladder, Thybulle is not even mentioned. Of the nine players listed, only Kendrick Nunn and Tyler Herro of the Miami Heat are on a team with a winning record.
Is it better to be a contributor on a title contender or to be a star on a team headed to the draft lottery?
Money talks and currently Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies in the odds-on favorite to win Rookie of the Year.
One statistic Thybulle leads all NBA rookies in is Box Plus/Minus (BPM). That is a box score estimate of the points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.
So, basically, Thybulle is helping a team win on the court more than any other rookie. Isn’t that a players’ main job?
Assuming Thybulle will return by mid-January and the Sixers remain one of the top teams in the NBA, the public and the all-rookie voters will get to see him in big games. Most competitors will be slogging through the end of the season.
Thybulle might be the most important rookie in the NBA this season in terms of being key to a team in title contention (sorry, not sold on Miami yet). Because he plays with so many other good players and defense is really the best part of his game, Thybulle will not have the stats of most ROY candidates (As an example, Morant averages 18.2 points and 6.5 assists).
However, the Sixers are on national T.V. a lot, so people will see a lot of Thybulle in action. That should help voters look beyond the stat sheet and see his real contributions.
Thybulle faces long odds of winning Rookie of the Year, but to make either of the two All-Rookie teams is not only a possibility, but a probability if he returns from injury playing at the same level.
For the 20th player picked in the draft, particularly one who averaged nine points in college, All-Rookie would certainly be a nice honor.