Maybe the easiest way to think about Zaccharie Risacher’s game is to compare it to his English. Both are works in progress, befitting a 19-year-old NBA rookie who was born in Spain to French parents and has spent most of his life in France. Neither is fully polished, but both are probably better than you’d expect. And both figure to get much, much better with time.
The state of his English was apparent over the course of an hour-long conversation in New York City in October: Risacher showed off a solid grasp of the language, much of it picked up from teammates in the LNB Elite, the top French pro league, where he made his senior team debut as a 16-year-old in 2021 and spent the next three seasons. “It’s locker room English, not what you expect to learn in a classroom,” he says. There were also movies, especially hoop flicks like He Got Game and Coach Carter, which he’s recently been able to watch without French overdubs. “They were actually better in English, for sure.”
Based on initial impressions from the NBA preseason, Risacher’s time in France’s pro league was no less beneficial to the development of his game. The 6-8, 200-pound wing, chosen No. 1 overall by Atlanta in the 2024 NBA Draft, made a dream first impression in his NBA debut, going for 18 points (on 7-9 shooting) in just 23 minutes in a win over the Pacers. Those numbers, and that result, might not count toward the Hawks’ hopes for a bounce-back season, but the value of Risacher’s outing is no less real.
Just ask the two guys whose appraisals matter as much as anyone’s in the ATL.
“It looked like he was enjoying himself,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder told reporters after the game. “He’s going to have good games, he’s going to have some bad games, but seeing him really have fun playing with his teammates, and those guys making each other better, was what I enjoyed.”
Trae Young, the Hawks’ franchise player, was similarly pleased with what he saw from his new running mate. “That was a hell of a performance,” Young said. “I want him to feel like he felt tonight, like there’s no pressure on him. He can go out there and be himself. He’s gonna have a hell of a career.”
None of this should come as a surprise—by definition, we expect big things from No. 1 picks—but the buzz on Risacher wasn’t quite on the level that his countryman, Victor Wembanyama, generated before and after the Spurs made him the top pick a year earlier. So, no, he hasn’t been anointed a generational game-changer like Wemby—nor, in the opinions of the 30 general managers who participated in the annual NBA GM survey, is he even a leading candidate for Rookie of the Year. (Five players got at least one vote in the poll, and Risacher somehow wasn’t one of them.) None of which seems to faze him in the least. Risacher knows his value, and he’s confident the glimpses he showed in preseason are just the start.
“I’m the type of player who can do a lot of things on the court—the term would be ‘versatile,’ I think, in English?” he says. “The exciting part of having me in your team…I will take pleasure to do whatever it takes to win. I’m that type of player. And I want to win.”
On-court versatility comes easily to a player for whom the game is birthright.
“Basketball is a habit for me and my family,” he says. “Basketball was already there before I was born.” That’s what happens when you’re born in the midst of your father’s 23-year pro career, as Zaccharie was. Risacher was born born in Malaga, Spain, in 2005, where his dad, Stéphane, was hooping for Baloncesto Malaga in the Spanish top division. That was one of 10 stops on Stéphane’s professional résumé in a career that lasted from 1987 to 2010 and also included stints in Greece and his native France. A six-time All-Star in France and a member of the country’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Stéphane was also a fixture for years on the French national team, winning a Silver medal with the 2000 Olympic squad—and, as it happened, being one of the 10 men on the court when Vince Carter created the nastiest poster of all time over his French teammate, Frederic Weis.
Le dunk de la mort happened five years before Zaccharie was born, so he knows it only through the YouTube clips. But of his own earliest memories, naturally, so many connect to basketball. “I cannot even remember the first time I played,” he says. “It was just there. Going to my dad’s practices and games, coming to the gym with him at a really young age—I just did it, and I never stopped doing basketball. It was a way of life that I liked. I never felt like I had to do it. I just wanted to be in the gym with my father. I started getting better, and I wanted to be the best version of myself and accomplish what my dad did—and even better.”
Risacher emphasizes that his father never pushed too hard, but simply gave his son the guidance he asked for. (Clearly, the approach is working in the family: Not only has Stéphane been instrumental in helping Zaccharie reach the NBA, but his daughter, Zaccharie’s younger sister Ainhoa, is one of the top young prospects in Europe; she was recently named one of the best players at the FIBA U17 World Cup. Says Zaccharie, “I’m proud of her, excited for her. I can shoot better than her, but she can handle the ball better than me. She’s tall, she loves to play the point, make crazy passes. She’s special. I can’t wait to see her grow.”)
Zaccharie’s own breakthrough came when he made his French league debut for the senior team at ASVEL Basket in 2021. No matter how helpful his father was, the kid had to learn for himself what it was like to play for, with and against grown men who had salaries and careers on the line. Looking back, he says, “Being pro at 16, that definitely was the biggest challenge of my life. In our league, a coach can get fired super quick. They don’t have time to be nice. It’s a lot of things to handle for a 16-year-old young man. You gotta learn fast, because you play with grown men. You gotta just learn how to deal with it. How I handled it? Just the fact that I never stopped working.”
Risacher thrived, earning LNB All-Star status in 2023 and being named EuroCup Rising Star earlier this year; more important, the experience toughened him, giving him the confidence that when he made the jump to the NBA, he would be better prepared than most rookies to appreciate the stakes. It made it that much easier to settle in after his move to the States. He says he “felt at home pretty quick” in Atlanta, which he credits to the vibe of the city and the Hawks organization. Good vibes aside, he’s taken that transition seriously, working out hard between the draft and training camp. “I wanted to be better than I was in June,” he insists.
He also had a chance to bond with the All-Star teammate with whom a successful partnership is essential for the Hawks’ hopes of improving from last season’s disappointment. A recent highlight: Traveling out to Oklahoma to visit Young on his home turf, catch an OU football game and appear on Young’s podcast. “I really appreciate him for that,” Risacher says of the trip. “That really meant something for me.”
The rookie doesn’t need a podcast of his own to return the favor. He just needs to simply continue balling out, working to develop his potential and the versatile skill set that convinced Atlanta to use a No. 1 pick on him. The results will no doubt mean something to Trae, to his new franchise and to long-suffering Hawks fans ready to root for a contender.
Portraits by Christian Quezada.
Photo via Getty Images.
