Farewell Matisse (?)
The Opening Tip
Hello & Happy Almost Weekend - It's the Corner Three!
Oh Yeah, The Sixers
Don't Look Now..
What a shitty last 2 runs, YUCK.
This Week's Top 10 (Trade Target Edition!)
10. Lebron James
9. Bones Hyland
8. Reggie Bullock
7. Mike Muscala
6. Kelly Oubre
5. Caleb Martin
4. Naz Reid
3. Nerlens Noel
2. Jae Crowder
1. Andre Drummond
Tweet of the week
SPIKE'S CORNER - FAREWELL MATISSE
New to the Corner Three Newsletter: every week Spike or Mike will write a section, aptly titled Spike's Corner or Mike's Corner. It's Spike's turn, writing about Matisse Thybulle.
Three points, one rebound, no assists, one steal and two fouls in ten minutes. That was Matisse Thybulle’s stat line in what could end up being his final game as a Sixer, as it looks like there’s at least a decent chance he’s traded prior to today’s 3pm deadline.
He was fine, neither spectacular in a good or a bad way. Hit a three, played pretty good defense on Jayson Tatum late in the game… ultimately forgettable. A lot like most of his games of the last couple of years.
There was a time several years ago when Thybulle was so loved by Sixers fans that I was the main enemy for a day (October 30th, 2019 I believe) on the internet because I suggested he was not as good as Robert Covington at the time. Thybulle was already seen as not just a suitable replacement for Covington, but already better. As a rookie. A player so good and so well liked and so full of potential that most people forgave the fact that theSixers let too many know that they promised Thybulle they’d take him in the draft and had to give the Celtics an extra draft just for the right to move up to take him. The sky, as they say, was the limit.
But like so many other players that we’ve loved, he did not reach the sky. In fact, not only did he not reach his potential, you could argue he didn’t ever get better at all. Whether this was something we should have seen coming from a player who averaged 9 points a game in his senior season at Washington is not the point. The point is that Thybulle is a pretty good representation of the fun and the disappointment of the last ten years of Sixers basketball. Hope when we knew nothing, disappointment when we knew everything. So much of the fun times of the last decade have been fueled by hope and mystery. It’s no fun when you know the guy won’t be any good or isn’t any good, it’s also less fun when you know the guy is good and you expect him to be good. But when you don’t know if he’s good or not, and you hope he’s good, that’s the stuff.
It seems like Thybulle is a good enough guy, who will almost certainly have a great game for another NBA team that we have to do 20 minutes on the podcast about, but will probably never become what we thought he would. That’s alright, most of them don’t. That’s mostly on us, if we’re being honest.
Matisse Thybulle may never have become a particularly good player, but he did give us a few years of hope, which is almost just as good.
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Peace, Love and Process
You Already Fucking Know What Time it Is
-Zo