Lakers Sign Matisse Thybulle To One-year Deal

The Lakers have made another perimeter signing to address their need for defense.

According to Shams Charania of ESPN, the purple and gold have agreed to a one-year deal with Matisse Thybulle. The deal is for the veteran’s minimum.

Shams also added a little nugget in his story on Thybulle’s signing, noting that the Lakers spoke to the Blazers about a potential sign-and-trade but nothing amounted from the discussions.

The Lakers also discussed sign-and-trade scenarios with the Trail Blazers, which would have enabled Thybulle to earn a higher salary, but the sides could not reach a deal.

Last season with the Blazers, Thybulle averaged 5.8 points, two rebounds, and two steals per game. However, he played only 30 games after playing just 15 in the 2024-25 season. The flip side to that is, prior to the last two seasons, he played at least 65 games in every season of his career.

Thybulle’s greatest skill comes on the defensive side of the ball. He was named Second Team All-Defense in his second and third years in the league with the Sixers.

For most of his career, Thybulle was a liability offensively. However, over those last two seasons, Thybulle shot a respectable 41.1% from three on 141 attempts in those 45 games. He also has upped his volume from three in recent seasons with his three years in Portland ranking as his three highest in terms of attempts per game of his career.

One of the first obvious takeaways from this signing is that it now leaves the Lakers with 16 players on standard contracts. Teams can go up to 20 contracts through the preseason, but must be down to 15 by opening night.

The Lakers will have to move on from one of their contracts, either by trading a player or waiving them. At this point as a team well over the cap, waiving a player will not open up any cap room, even if it’s a waive-and-stretch of Jarred Vanderbilt. That makes it more likely a trade could be in the works.

There have been plenty of rumors about a Jonathan Kuminga signing, which would require a sign-and-trade to complete anyway. What this Thybulls signing seems to forecast is that the team is likely to trade Jarred Vanderbilt for someone, whether it’s Kuminga or not.

There’s also the possibility of the team trading Bronny James to the team that signs LeBron, though they have indicated a desire to keep Bronny. Considering he’s a useful player on the roster and they have multiple players who don’t fit that billing, it’d make more sense to get off some of those players and keep around players like Bronny.

The Lakers are hoping Thybulle can also fall into that category of being a useful player as well.

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