{"id":690914,"date":"2026-04-01T00:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T00:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/690914\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T00:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T00:43:15","slug":"blazers-continue-to-look-genius-for-retaining-veteran-wing-at-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/690914\/","title":{"rendered":"Blazers continue to look genius for retaining veteran wing at deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matisse Thybulle\u2019s spot on the Trail Blazers was in serious jeopardy at the trade deadline. Sidy Cissoko and Caleb Love were putting pressure on the front office to clear space for them on the 15-man roster<\/a>, and Thybulle\u2019s lack of availability made him a prime candidate to be sacrificed<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Portland ultimately chose to keep the veteran wing around, though, and now he\u2019s making them look genius for doing so as the playoffs approach.<\/p>\n

Matisse Thybulle is giving the Blazers exactly what they need<\/p>\n

Thybulle is in his seventh NBA season, so at this point, he\u2019s a proven commodity. When he\u2019s healthy, he\u2019s an impact role player, but his health has been a big \u201cif\u201d throughout his career. Since the trade deadline, however, he\u2019s been consistently active, and it\u2019s allowed him to remind the Blazers and the league as a whole what he\u2019s capable of.<\/p>\n

The Australian sits in the league-wide pantheon of defensive disruptors. He doesn\u2019t have two All-Defensive awards to his name for no reason. Thybulle\u2019s ability to anticipate passes, poke out back-tap steals, and block jumpshots is uncanny. The difference he makes on defense has enhanced what was already a strength for Portland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since the trade deadline, the Blazers have the sixth-best defensive rating in the NBA. Thybulle ranks first on the team in Basketball Reference\u2019s defensive box plus\/minus, first in steal percentage, and third in block percentage. He\u2019s been nothing short of an instrumental cog in Portland\u2019s elite fortification. He won\u2019t finish with nearly enough games played to qualify for postseason awards, but if he had hit that 65-game mark, he would have a strong argument for another All-Defensive honor.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s made Thybulle extra impactful for the Blazers as of late is his three-point shooting. His shot has been a bit wishy-washy historically, but he\u2019s starting to solidify it as a real weapon. At the very least, defenders have to think twice about leaving him open, which hasn\u2019t always been the case. He\u2019s shooting 40.3% from deep this season on 9.3 attempts per 100 possessions, the highest volume of his career. For context, that attempt rate puts him right in line with established shooters like Jerami Grant, Aaron Wiggins, Max Christie, and Cam Spencer.<\/p>\n

All in all, Thybulle\u2019s defensive dynamism and improving offensive utility have made him invaluable for the Blazers down the stretch this season. His importance will only heighten in the play-in and the playoffs, too, if Portland makes it, as he\u2019s one of the few key veterans on the team with past postseason experience.<\/p>\n

Thybulle will be a free agent this summer, and he\u2019s setting himself up to be a priority retention for the Blazers. That\u2019s a conversation for later, though. For now, he and his team are focused on the postseason ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matisse Thybulle\u2019s spot on the Trail Blazers was in serious jeopardy at the trade deadline. Sidy Cissoko and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-690914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116326682068977059","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}