The Lock the Lakers Want but Can't Figure Out How to Pay
Matisse Thybulle, a free agent, has popped up on the Lakers' radar: nobody in the NBA defends the pick and roll better, and only Kevin Porter Jr. steals more balls. The problem isn't the player. It's the salary gap.
Twenty-six possessions guarding Darius Garland. Zero points allowed. That's Matisse Thybulle's calling card this season, and it explains why, according to our feed (Luke Adams), the Lakers have started making moves for the forward, now a free agent. The interest is exploratory, and the catch is well known: Los Angeles has salary constraints that make a deal complicated. But the debate shouldn't be whether Thybulle is worth it. The numbers say he is. The debate is whether they move fast enough before a team with cap space swoops in.
Thybulle isn't just a filler rumor — he's the best pick-and-roll defender in the NBA and makes his team better every minute he's on the floor.
- Nobody defends the pick and roll better
- No. 2 in the league in steals
- +9 net rating in his role
The Predator Who Doesn't Show Up in the Box Score
The profile is sharp: a forward who lives to disrupt opponents and run. His offensive DNA says it all — half his plays are catch-and-shoot looks and 23% come in transition, a diet that puts him among the fastest-running players in the entire league. He doesn't demand the ball, doesn't hold it, doesn't get in the way: just 0.6 minutes of possession per game and 1.73 seconds per touch. Catch, decide, release. He's the perfect teammate for locker rooms where the hierarchy is already set.
But his real business is on the other end. Guarding the pick and roll — the play that decides the modern NBA — nobody does it better: he allows just 0.541 points per possession, barely over half a point every time an opponent runs a ball screen at him. Literally the best mark in the league. And on top of that, he brings the invisible work that coaches fall in love with.
The Quickest Hands in the West (Almost)
This season, only one player in the entire NBA records more steals than him. That's not a figure of speech — he's second in the actual rankings, ahead of hot-name specialists like Dyson Daniels and Ausar Thompson.
And here's the number almost nobody cross-references: his overall impact. Over 30 games in a contained 16-minute role, his team outscores opponents by 9 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, posting a defensive rating of 99.8 — the kind of number you see on elite defenses. A word of caution: these are role-player numbers, not a 35-minute star's. But they tell a crystal-clear story. When Thybulle plays, his team wins its stretch.
Over a solid sample of roughly 153 contested shots, opponents shoot just 39.2% when he's the primary defender, compared to what would normally be 46.3% against anyone else. Seven percentage points of shooting that simply vanish the moment he shows up.
With the Ball? Just Enough
Here's the fine print. His career high is 20 points (against Toronto, back in 2019) and in clutch moments his volume is thin: 0.4 points in the final five minutes. His catch-and-shoot game — half his offensive diet — runs below the league average. But watch out for the snap-judgment trap: this season he's posting a 60% true shooting percentage, elite efficiency, because he only shoots what he should shoot, as his shot chart makes clear. In Philadelphia, his best historical lineup alongside Harden, Embiid, and Maxey posted a +20.2 net rating per 100 possessions — proof that next to elite creators, his off-ball profile multiplies.
The Math That Doesn't Add Up (Yet)
His last salary benchmark hovers around $11.6 million per year, and that's where the shoe pinches for the Lakers: Los Angeles doesn't have comfortable cap room, while teams with real space under the ceiling — like Memphis ($18.2M) or Brooklyn ($11.8M) — could walk in with a straight offer and no salary gymnastics required. If the Lakers want him, they'll have to convince him to leave money on the table that the market is ready to pay. And with the best pick-and-roll defender in the NBA, that's never easy.
What the Lakers gain
- ✓the best pick-and-roll defender in the NBA
- ✓2 steals and 3.9 deflections per game
- ✓a role player who adds +9 per 100 possessions without asking for the ball
What they don't get
- ✕shot creation (0.9 assists per game)
- ✕a scorer for clutch moments
Thybulle doesn't put points on the board for you — he takes them away from the other team, which amounts to the same thing.
The Lakers' interest is purely exploratory and their cap space is tight. But the numbers are screaming that this is exactly the kind of quiet signing that separates a good team from a real defense.