THYBULLE Matisse

General
REPRESENTING AUSTRALIA
He was born in the United States of America and moved to Sydney, NSW, Australia with his family at age two. He spent around seven years in Australia before returning to the United States of America in 2005. He has dual citizenship in both countries. "I'm definitely proud of Australia. I remember I thought it was so weird when we came to the US because the Santa Claus in Australia wore Speedos and rode a surfboard. And when I came here, he was all dressed up in cold weather." (sports.yahoo.com, 03 Feb 2021; smh.com.au, 02 Mar 2020; espn.com, 08 Feb 2020; seattletimes.com, 11 Jul 2016)

DEFENSIVE FOCUS
He says his basketball abilities, especially his offensive skills, developed later in high school. As a result his father Greg, a Haitian immigrant who had never played the sport competitively, encouraged him to focus on defence. "I told him [Matisse], 'There will always be someone who will shoot the ball better than you, but there will never be a better defender than you." Matisse admits defence isn't the most attractive element of the game, but that it is something he enjoys. While playing for the University of Washington, he broke the Pac-12 Conference single-season and career steal records set by Jason Kidd [single-season] and Gary Payton [career]. "Defence isn't something people focus on. It's hard work. It's not sexy. But I've always embraced it." (redbull.com, 16 Feb 2021)

ARTIST INSPIRATION
He is named after the French artist Henri Matisse. "My dad was backpacking through Europe and there was a museum that had a bunch of Matisse paintings and he fell in love with the work. It's not like anybody in my family is very artistic but it's something we appreciated. We would go to museums and, when we lived in Australia, we would go to the [Sydney] Opera House. It's really cool to think my dad had that much forethought going into naming me. It's cool to be named after someone as special, and important, as Henri Matisse was in the art world." (Philadelphia 76ers Twitter profile, 18 Oct 2019)

SHIRT NUMBER TRIBUTE
His mother Elizabeth died of leukaemia in 2015 and he wore her favourite number [four] as a tribute when he played at high school and for University of Washington. When he joined Philadelphia 76ers the number four shirt had been retired, so he chose number 22 [2+2] instead. He was also introduced to photography by his mother and says that influenced him to start vlogging. "So much of who I am was sculpted by her, so putting myself out there and being who I am, and doing it on a large scale for a lot of people to see - that's definitely something I think about. I feel that connection to her." He filmed, edited and narrated his own YouTube vlog called 'Welcome to the Bubble' that recounted the closing fixtures of the 2020 NBA season inside the league's bubble at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. "I knew there would be a ton of buzz about basketball starting up and that this was something that people would be interested in."
(inquirer.com, 21 Jul 2020; nytimes.com, 16 Jul 2020)

NBA DRAFT
He was selected in the first round, 20th overall pick, of the 2019 NBA Draft. (nba.com, 2020)

In 2018 he became the first University of Washington player to receive the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year award. (gohuskies.com, 2019; redbull.com, 06 Dec 2020)