The Lakers have added the kind of defender the Mavericks once tried hard to put next to Luka Doncic.
Matisse Thybulle is headed to Los Angeles on a one-year, $3.3 million deal, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. It’s a move that brings Doncic together with one of the league’s most disruptive perimeter stoppers, and it also closes a loop that started in the summer of 2023, when Dallas chased Thybulle in restricted free agency.
Back then, the Mavericks signed Thybulle to a three-year offer sheet worth $33 million as they tried to reshape the roster after missing the 2023 NBA Playoffs. Portland matched the offer, keeping the two-time All-Defensive Second Team selection in place and blocking the move Dallas had been targeting. Thybulle was forced to stay with the Trail Blazers even though he badly wanted to join the Mavericks.
Now he finally lands with Doncic, just in a different uniform.
Doncic even spoke to Thybulle before he signed with Los Angeles, and the Lakers are getting a player who quietly checks a lot of boxes. Last season with Portland, Thybulle averaged 5.8 points, 2.0 rebounds, and 2.0 steals in 16.0 minutes per game while shooting 39.8 percent from 3-point range. That kind of production doesn’t jump off the page at first glance, but the fit does.
For a Luka-led team, perimeter defense matters, and Thybulle gives the Lakers something they’ve been light on in some of their other offseason moves. At 6-foot-5 with a 7-foot wingspan, he’s built to bother ball-handlers, jump passing lanes, and guard multiple spots on the floor. His off-ball instincts are what make him dangerous, and he can do damage on both ends by taking away one possession and cashing in the next with an open jumper.
That’s exactly why Dallas wanted him in the first place.
If the Blazers had not matched the offer sheet, Thybulle would have joined a Mavericks group led by Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and Dereck Lively II. He would have had plenty of clean looks created by the gravity of Doncic and Irving, while also filling the role Dallas needed most: a defensive stopper on the wing.
Instead, he spent three and a half seasons in Portland, where the team made the NBA Playoffs only once during his time there. The path to Dallas disappeared in 2023, but the reunion with Doncic is happening now in Los Angeles.
And for the Lakers, the appeal is obvious. They’ve been building around Doncic this summer, including adding two of his former Mavericks teammates, and Thybulle gives them the sort of defender Dallas once wanted all along.
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