An in-depth look at why the Atlanta Hawks should seriously consider taking Matisse Thybulle out of Washington in the 2019 NBA Draft.
For the Atlanta Hawks, this time of the year is the most impactful for the team’s future, as the 2019 NBA Draft is the most notable way in which the team can improve itself ahead of the upcoming season. While free agency has its merits, Atlanta Hawks General Manager Travis Schlenk is making it clear that the team plans to build organically through the draft – which is exactly what they’ve done so far.
The baseline for this team is already quite high, as they put up 29 wins in the first season of a rebuild (though they had the point differential of a roughly 24-win team per Cleaning the Glass). No matter what, the young core of Trae Young, John Collins and Kevin Huerter holds real promise, especially on the offensive end.
Where this young Atlanta Hawks squad needs a serious upgrade is on the less glamorous side of the ball: Defense. We’ve previously outlined the main need for the Atlanta Hawks this offseason, which is a defense-first addition to the backcourt, and luckily for the team, there is a player that will meet that criterion exactly in the 2019 NBA Draft: Matisse Thybulle out of the University of Washington.
While this might not be a popular choice, Thybulle is a truly special defender, and the Atlanta Hawks would do well to ponder his selection in June’s NBA Draft.
Read on to explore a few reasons why Thybulle deserves the Hawks’ attention on draft night.
Vital Stats & Skills
Thybulle will be 22 years old on draft day, which is not particularly aged for a college senior. Though he will be roughly a year older than Collins and two years older than both Huerter and Young, Thybulle should fit in quite seamlessly with the youth that the Atlanta Hawks are building around.
In terms of his measurables, Thybulle clocks in with a strong, lithe frame of 6-foot-6 and 201 pounds with a plus wingspan of 7 feet.
On the court in Washington’s suffocating zone, Thybulle looks ever bigger, as he uses that big frame to glide all over the court and disrupt the opposing team’s offense.
Despite not getting a ton of shine in the 2019 NBA draft class, Thybulle is a stupendous, quick-twitch athlete with a blistering first step on offense and horizontal quickness that allows him to materialize out of thin air on defense to contest shots and jump passing lanes.
Thybulle’s generational defensive instincts make him a terror when the opposing team has the ball, and he is able to employ his athleticism with aplomb to dominate one-on-one matchups with his size, length, quickness and smarts.
All of these attributes would make him a stupendous fit on the Atlanta Hawks going forward.
Statistical Profile
In terms of his stats, if we just focus on defense, Thybulle grades out as one of the most impactful college players in history. Indeed, The Stepien NBA Draft podcast proclaimed that Thybulle was “the most impactful defensive player in college basketball.”
Certainly, his statistics back that up. In his junior year, Thybulle produced 101 steals and 45 blocks – making him only one of two players since the 1992-93 season per College Basketball Reference (Eric Coley of Tulsa being the other) to produce such a total in both categories.
In his senior year, Thybulle thoroughly outdid himself on both fronts by producing 125 steals and a whopping 79 blocks. To contrast, Thybulle finished the year with 111 rebounds and 77 assists.
No player since 1992-93 has come anywhere close to producing numbers like that. Similarly, Thybulle is the only player in College Basketball Reference’s database to log a season with a steal percentage of higher than 6 and a block percentage higher than 7 – never mind that Thybulle’s steal rate was actually 6.6 and his block rate was 8.1.
By comparison, Mikal Bridges, who was widely believed to be one of the best defenders in the 2018 NBA draft class, finished his three-year college career with a steal rate of 3.0 percent and a block rate of 3.6 percent.
Thybulle’s numbers in those categories are hair-raising. His career steal rate is 4.7 percent, and his career block rate is 4.9 percent.
Defense
Of course, statistics aren’t everything, but in the case of Matisse Thybulle, they back up exactly what the eye test conveys: Thybulle is just an incredibly good defender.
With excellent length, superb hands and supremely swift feet, Thybulle is a menace on the defensive end with a propensity for producing highlight plays with regularity. Often, Thybulle will pick a pass clean that zoom to the other end of the floor for a highlight-reel dunk, as he memorably did in the Pac 12 Tournament:
Thybulle’s size and length allow him to contest a multitude of jump shots in the midrange and from three, he is fully switchable across at least four positions and his perfect timing in the passing lanes means that not even easy looks are quite that easy.
Thybulle fights through screens, has a nose for the ball and employs amazing defensive anticipation to know when to time his jump to block jumpers.
Now, it must be noted that Thybulle does play in a zone defense setup for the Washington Huskies, which allows him to gamble constantly on the defensive end, which might’ve inflated some of his steals and blocks numbers throughout the season.
But with his tools and his feel, it seems extremely unlikely that four years of proven college production on the defensive end won’t translate to at least a solid level in the NBA – especially with his athleticism and smarts.
Offense
Despite all of this praise heaped upon Thybulle for his incredible defense, basketball is not just a one-way game. So what of Thybulle’s offensive game?
While not quite as astonishing as his defense, Thybulle should be able to carve out a role for himself on the offensive end due to his aforementioned quick-twitch athleticism as well as, more importantly, rock-solid shooting mechanics from downtown.
In his college career, Thybulle had a three-point attempt rate above 50 percent and he shot 35.8 percent from deep on those tries. Though his career effective field goal percentage of 52.2 percent might not be eye-popping, those numbers are good enough that his three-point stroke at least has to be guarded.
Because of his brilliance on the less glamorous end, if Thybulle can just be a slight positive on the other side of the ball, he’ll be an important player for the Atlanta Hawks.
Beyond that, Thybulle’s speed and surprisingly explosive first step as well as an underrated leaping ability means that he should be able to play a huge role in the Atlanta Hawks’ fast-paced offensive system that head coach Lloyd Pierce implemented in his successful first season with the team.
An opportunistic cutter with a tight handle and the ability to attack closeouts sparingly, Thybulle should be enough of a positive on offense that his sparkling defense never gets played off the floor on the other end.
Fit on the Atlanta Hawks
For the Atlanta Hawks, Matisse Thybulle would be a godsend in the 2019 NBA Draft. He would cover up the defensive deficiencies of Trae Young better than pretty much anyone else in this class, and with compact, easily repeatable shooting mechanics, his offense should help aid the Hawks on the other end as well.
Beyond that, Thybulle should be able to provide value just due to being a slightly unsung draft prospect. In our recent full-team mock draft, we had the San Antonio Spurs taking Thybulle #19 in the 2019 NBA Draft.
If the Hawks wanted to get a little frisky, they could actually trade down with a team that is desperate to move up, take Thybulle and hopefully pick up another young player or another future draft asset in the process.
While not a sure thing, the value of nabbing another asset while also picking up perhaps the best defender in the 2019 NBA Draft class – and one of the best defenders in any recent draft class – would be an absolute coup for the Atlanta Hawks.
Of course, we know that GM Travis Schlenk values shooting above all else – as his three first-round selections last year would entail – so would he be scared off by Thybulle’s down year from outside (30.5%) in his senior season?
Who knows, but if the Atlanta Hawks were to select Matisse Thybulle in the 2019 NBA Draft, their defense would be immediately and irreversibly improved.