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Matisse Thybulle Has to Turn a Specialist's Numbers Into a Lakers Role

A 29-year-old wing posted a 9.0 net rating on 16 minutes a night. The Lakers need to find out if that scales up.

Matisse Thybulle30 gp, 16.0 min, 5.8 pts, 2.0 stl, 39.8% 3PT
By the Lakers Nightly Desk · Monday, October 12

Matisse Thybulle has spent seven NBA seasons being the guy teams notice only when he's guarding someone. Last season in Los Angeles, the numbers around him finally matched the reputation — and now preseason is deciding whether he gets more than sixteen minutes a night to prove it again.

Matisse Thybulle of the Lakers
Matisse Thybulle. Photo: Udeezy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Defense Never Wavered

Thybulle's calling card hasn't changed in seven NBA seasons: closeouts, deflections, length that bothers shooters without needing him to score. Last season he averaged 2.0 steals and 0.5 blocks in just 16.0 minutes a night — rates that would rank among the league's best stretched across a starter's workload. His defensive rating sat at 99.8, nine points better than his offensive rating of 108.8, the split that keeps a defense-first wing on the floor no matter what the shot chart says.

A Jump Shot Finally Lands

The surprise is what Thybulle did with the ball. He shot 39.8 percent from three on 3.1 attempts a game, a career-caliber mark for a player who spent years as a release valve defenses ignored beyond the arc. He paired it with 84.0 percent at the free-throw line and a true shooting mark of 60.0 percent, numbers that read like a shooter, not a specialist who happens to make a few. On 14.4 percent usage, he is taking almost nothing for himself and still turning it into efficient points.

Health, Minutes and the Verdict

Thybulle enters tonight's preseason game against Golden State off the injury report, after bouncing on and off it twice this week — a rest-related day-to-day listing Oct. 6, a clearance Oct. 8, then a return to day-to-day the same day with no detail given. He will earn $2.4 million in 2026-27, on a wing rotation deep enough that his minutes are never guaranteed game to game. Sixteen a night produced a plus-9.0 net rating last season. The verdict heading into the regular season: double that workload, and Thybulle stops being a luxury and starts being load-bearing.

How many minutes is Matisse Thybulle playing for the Lakers?

He averaged 16.0 minutes a game across 30 appearances last season, with a net rating of plus-9.0 in that time.

What is Matisse Thybulle's contract with the Lakers?

He is set to earn $2.4 million in the 2026-27 season.

By the Lakers Nightly Desk, written from the club's data and the reports on file, with every name and number checked against them. How the desks work.

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