Philadelphia 76ers' Matisse Thybulle ineligible for playoff games in Toronto because of vaccine status
Philadelphia 76ers guard Matisse Thybulle is ineligible to play in Games 3 and 4 of a first-round playoff series against the Toronto Raptors because he is not fully vaccinated.
Canada requires visitors to be fully vaccinated, and league informed teams in a memo late last year that “any player who is not fully vaccinated and does not have a medical contraindication to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine will be unable to enter Canada to play in games in Toronto.”
Thybulle was listed as ineligible to play in Toronto in the last regular-season meeting between the two teams on Thursday. It was not known who the Sixers would play in the first round but the results of Sunday’s games confirmed a Philadelphia-Toronto best-of-seven matchup in the first round between the fourth and fifth seeds in the Eastern Conference.
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Thybulle, one of the league’s best perimeter defenders, and Sixers coach Doc Rivers discussed the topic following Philadelphia’s 118-106 victory against Detroit on Sunday.
Thybulle, who said he received one dose of the vaccine, explained his decision to reporters in a lengthy answer.
“I was raised in a holistic household where anti-vax was not a term that was used,” Thybulle said. “It’s a weird term that’s been thrown around to just label people, but we grew up with Chinese medicine and naturopathic doctors and with that upbringing, coming into this situation, I felt like I had a solid foundation of medical resources that could serve me beyond what this vaccine could do for me.
“As things escalated and as this situation has played out, I’ve obviously had to reconsider and look at it differently. To that point, it got to the point last year during the playoffs where I did actually consider getting vaccinated and went through with getting the first shot, the first dose because, at that point, I was under the impression that getting vaccinated means that I could not get the disease and transmit it to other people. I felt like if I’m going to be a part of society in the position I’m in, I need to do what’s right for the greater good. That argument of the greater good held a lot of weight for me.
“As things progressed and this virus has changed in many different ways, it just showed to the science that that wasn’t the case anymore. That even while being vaccinated, you can still spread the disease. So for me, in my reasoning, it felt like getting vaccinated was not something I need to do to protect other people, and it was something that I would have to do to then protect myself and with that being considered and the holistic background of my upbringing and just the way I view medicine in general, I felt like I was secure in going to the doctors that I have to treat COVID if I did get it and in the case that I did, I was able to go about it in my holistic way and I’m able to sit here today healthy and be OK because of it.”
His mother, Elizabeth, received her doctorate in naturopathic medicine. She died of leukemia in 2015.
Rivers confirmed he will alter his rotations in the games where Thybulle can’t play, including a potential Game 6 in Toronto. The Raptors beat the Sixers in three of four games this season.
“(This) is not the outcome that I wanted," he said. "It's always hard to be unavailable. It's hard to watch your guys go out and there and fight without you. ... I trust these guys to take care of it when I can't be on the court with them."