Guard Matisse Thybulle quietly provided one of the feel-good stories of the 2025-26 season for the Portland Trail Blazers. The seven-year veteran returned from seasons-spanning injuries to play 30 games, averaging 6 points and 2 rebounds in 16 minutes per appearance while shooting 40% from the three-point arc. The lift he provided his teammates (and the defense) was a bonus to the campaign.<\/p>\n
The return came in the final year of Thybulle\u2019s current contract, a three-year deal culminating in an $11.5 million salary. Coincidentally, that\u2019s close to the amount the Trail Blazers have remaining this season under the luxury tax threshold. That\u2019s leading a few Blazer\u2019s Edge readers to put two and two together in a fashion illustrated by today\u2019s Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag question:<\/p>\n
Dave,<\/p>\n
What do you think of signing Tisse back? Is he healthy now? How about the fit with the new lineup? If we got him at a discount he\u2019d be a really nice bench guy. Thoughts?<\/p>\n
Kyle<\/p>\n
When it comes to skills, Thybulle is exactly what the doctor ordered for Portland\u2019s rotation. He\u2019s the opposite of everything the Blazers have in abundance. He can shoot. He defends the perimeter well. He doesn\u2019t need the ball to be effective. Portland\u2019s backcourt is a bunch of jugs full of various flavors of syrupy fruit punch. Sometimes it\u2019s nice to have a bottle of water instead: clean, low-calorie, healthy and refreshing. That\u2019s Matisse.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m using the word \u201cbackcourt\u201d, though, you know we\u2019re in trouble. I don\u2019t have to rehearse the names: Ja Morant, Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday, Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, Vit Krejci. The field is overcrowded already. Of that group, Krejci and Thybulle would be the most likely to swing over to small forward in a three-guard lineup, but it\u2019s not a comfortable fit for a 6\u20195 player. Still, that\u2019s his best hope of participating in the current iteration.<\/p>\n
Thybulle\u2019s distance shooting is nice\u2014critical for Portland nowadays\u2014but his defense is the part I like most. Matisse is the best player on the team at closing to the arc and disrupting shots without overcommitting or fouling. He\u2019s not just quick, he\u2019s efficient. Smart, too. I loved watching him defend last season.<\/p>\n
Is that enough to justify the cap cost when adding him to the throng of guards? Maybe, under a couple conditions.<\/p>\n
If any or all of those conditions are met, I\u2019d love to see Thybulle back. He\u2019s only 29. He\u2019d be a great veteran addition.<\/p>\n
If they plan to keep the team as-is, though, swinging for the fences with scoring guards, Thybulle might find a happier home and more playing time elsewhere. He can\u2019t stand in the river, hold up a palm, and stop the flow singlehandedly. If Portland\u2019s other perimeter defenders commit to scrambling hard to keep the centers at home in the lane, Thybulle could become an important piece, maybe a team leader in that regard. If Matisse ends up doing all the scrambling while his teammates applaud appreciatively, signing him will be a waste of time.<\/p>\n
Right now I would guess that the Blazers should not sign Thybulle. They can probably use that money better elsewhere. But it\u2019d take half a whisker to change my mind. I just hope that if they do, they\u2019re committed to playing a style that makes him matter.<\/p>\n
\u2018Tisse could be one of the players making life easier on new head coach Micah Nori. Let\u2019s see if he gets the chance.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the question! If you all have any, you can send them to blazersub@gmail.com and we\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guard Matisse Thybulle quietly provided one of the feel-good stories of the 2025-26 season for the Portland Trail…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,46315,51192,590,85],"class_list":["post-785576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blazers-analysis","tag-blazers-mailbags","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}