NBA Draft: Zion Williamson still first in 2019 Redraft

Every player has their strengths and weaknesses, but a small handful of players manage to make it into the league with overwhelmingly strong strengths and incredibly weak weaknesses. Matisse Thybulle fits the bill as one such player.

He entered the league as a top-10 defender and has only improved since then. At 6’5″ he has reasonable size for a shooting guard, but his 7-foot wingpsan allows him to swallow up opposing guards and even most wings in the league. He creates steals out of thin air, leading the league in steal percentage this past season. Despite playing only 20 minutes per game he was third in the league in total steals.

That wingpsan also allows him to block shots even defending on the perimeter, and his block percentage ranked inside the top-10, and was by far the highest-ranked non-big in the league. Thybulle’s defense is so good it’s impossible to ignore, and he made the All-Defensive team this past year even in a small role.

The offense is the issue, and what keeps Thybulle from being a high-minute starter. For his career he has hit just 42 percent of his shots from outside, even more concerning given that he has a low usage role and gets good looks set up for him. He his only 30.1 percent of his 3-pointers this year, and just 44.4 percent from the free-throw line. His passing is only to get the ball away from him.

Just outside the lottery is the right place to take Thybulle, and the New Orleans Pelicans pull the trigger here on a unique player who is immediately a difference maker on one end of the court. In this redraft the Pelicans have nabbed Zion Williamson, Jordan Poole, and Matisse Thybulle, a young and explosive collection of players with a much higher ceiling than their original draft picks.