Thybulle was born in
Scottsdale, Arizona, the son of Greg, a
Haitian-born engineer raised in the
Harlem neighborhood of New York,
[3][4] and Dr. Elizabeth Thybulle, a
naturopath who died of leukemia in 2015.
[5] He was named after French artist
Henri Matisse.
[6] When he was two, his family moved to
Sydney, Australia, where they lived for around seven years.
[7] The Thybulle family lived in Sydney's
North Shore while in Australia and the children attended elementary school at
North Sydney Demonstration School.
[8] Matisse did not play much basketball in Australia and focused more on swimming while there, where he said lifeguards "were a really big deal".
[9] His family returned to the U.S. in 2005 and settled in
Sammamish, Washington, a suburb east of
Seattle.
[7]
Thybulle could not make
layups consistently until around the eighth grade, when his coordination began matching his speed.
[9] He attended
Skyline High School for two years, then transferred to nearby
Eastside Catholic,
[9][10] where he was ranked a four-star recruit by
Scout.com and three-star by
ESPN,
[11][12] and graduated in 2015.
Thybulle played
college basketball for the
Washington Huskies. As a senior in 2019, he was recognized as the top defender in the nation with the
Naismith Defensive Player of the Year and the
Lefty Driesell Award.
He was selected in the first round of the
2019 NBA draft with the 20th overall pick (along with Nassir Little 25th pick, and Cam Reddish 10th pick). He was named to the
NBA All-Defensive Second Team in 2021 and 2022.