Zaccharie Risacher, the Known Commodity

In the absolute mess that is this 2024 NBA Draft field, the potential number one pick stands out not due to his high upside, but by simply knowing exactly what he's great at.

Zaccharie Risacher went into last year’s FIBA U19 World Cup with a hefty pedigree; he was considered by that point as the top international player in the 2005 generation and a potential top-five pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. However, the French wing didn’t play up to his pre-tournament hype, bowing out of the competition with a zero-point, five-turnover performance in a loss against Spain in the tournament’s final.

The concerns around Risacher’s profile after that performance extended beyond the stat sheet. While he was an impactful defender and efficient three-point shooter, Risacher didn’t show the level of offensive aggression expected from a blue-chip prospect like him.

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PURCHASE HERE

“For someone who has had their name thrown in the conversation as a top pick in the 2024 draft, he needs to be much more aggressive as a scorer, and this was the perfect setting to do it. Risacher is still an excellent player with a bright future, but his performance just left me wanting him to show more.” - Tyler Metcalf. July 5th, 2023

Nearly one year later, we found ourselves back to square one, with both the publicly available mock drafts and the people we talk to behind the scenes pointing to Risacher as a solid candidate to be the first player who hears his name called on June 26.

It serves as a reminder that prospects can bounce back from concerns. Younger prospects like Risacher, who just turned 19 years old back in April, can improve over the course of their pre-draft seasons, dissipating previous concerns, improving over their perceived weaknesses, and proving doubters wrong.

Except, that’s not what Risacher did at all.

Risacher took the other improvement route. He didn’t show new facets to his game this year; he was simply elite at picking his spots. He avoided doing what he doesn’t do at a great level as much as possible while becoming absolutely fucking elite at what made him great in the first place.

Risacher’s NBA elite offensive skill is his shooting and there’s little reason to doubt his statistical profile in this area. His 38.7% mark from beyond the arc on 238 attempts during the season put him in elite company when we look at the past ten drafts. If we take all the players who were drafted either as freshmen out of college or in their first season of eligibility out of the international game, there are only six players who attempted 200+ three-pointers and made at least 38% of them in their pre-draft seasons. All of them became good (if not elite) NBA three-point shooters both in terms of percentage and volume of attempts.

Risacher’s tape also leaves little reason to doubt his potential as a shooter, as the Frenchman shoots an easy ball off the catch. It all starts with his footwork, Risacher is quick to set his feet and versatile enough to convert in jumpers that require him to step or hop into his shot. Once he catches the ball and sets his feet, Risacher is extremely quick to rise up and release the jumper. Everything happens in one fluid motion and there aren’t nearly any moving parts when it comes to his upper body: he aligns well to the rim and has a smooth, repeatable release.

The combination of these aspects—the consistent mechanics, his versatile footwork, and his quick release along with his high release point—makes him an all-around catch-and-shoot threat who is able to convert heavily contested jumpers with little time and space.

The shooting, however, expands beyond the catch-and-shoot game. Risacher moves well off the ball to get open and is able to get his shot off rather quickly after relocating. He’s also a master of shooting out of closeouts; he reads the direction and momentum of the opposing defender extremely well and knows how to attack those situations, commanding so much gravity as a shooter that he doesn’t even need to pump fake to get opponents to fly by.

The more impressive moments for Risacher come with his dribble jumpers. Here’s where Risacher’s quickness to rise for the jumper shines, allowing him to shoot over defenders coming out of a dribble move. In these situations, Risacher shows the ability to string dribble moves together and create separation with his footwork via sidesteps and stepback moves.

Risacher certainly has the potential to become an elite movement and off-the-dribble shooter in time with his shooting touch, consistent mechanics, footwork, and quick trigger, but I wouldn’t say he’s at that point just yet. His 0.78 Points Per Shot on Dribble Jumpers, according to Synergy, rank him 12th among 25 wings and forwards on our big board. There is not much tape this year that involves him in the type of actions in which elite movement shooters thrive in the NBA, such as pindowns, elevator, or stagger screens.

In a similar vein, Risacher took only five jumpers as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, which speaks about Risacher’s role in JL Bourg’s scheme; he was someone who finished plays, but not someone they ran plays for. However, this specific piece of info might be less of a reflection of JL Bourg’s scheme, and more of an indication of Risacher’s limitations as a ball-handler.

While Risacher can certainly execute a number of dribble moves from a stationary position, which allows him to create space for jumpers, he’s a rigid ball-handler on the move who has a hard time changing both directions and speeds with the ball. His tendency to dribble the ball too far from his body (as if he’s carefully trying to not get tangled up with the ball) slows him down when he’s driving through traffic, limiting his ability to get to his spots and to dribble his way out of tough situations. A good number of his turnovers seem to come from tight spaces that he’s incapable of escaping with the ball in his hands.

With his limitations as a ball-handler, Risacher relies on cuts and transition opportunities to put pressure on the rim—the latter being an area where the French forward thrives both leading the break or running the floor as an off-ball target. Risacher has great speed in the open court and he’s fluid enough with the ball in his hands to avoid opponents in space, utilizing Eurosteps and spin moves to get to his spots in the paint. The sheer speed he gets in transition allows him to get to the rim with tremendous momentum and go up for strong finishes at the rim.

Risacher infamously finished 71st out of 77 total participants in the Draft Combine in both the standing vertical and the max vertical leap, with 25” and 31” marks, respectively. Someone who is able to throw it down with the level of authority shown in the clip above shouldn’t have such poor numbers, which means that we can throw his Combine performance away…

While I do believe that the Combine performance is not a 1:1 representation of Risacher’s open-court athleticism, it does track when it comes to his half-court athleticism. Risacher is unable to generate the same type of power that he gets in transition on his halfcourt drives. The lack of explosive ball-handling makes it difficult for him to get by his defender, hindering Risacher even in advantageous situations, such as attacking mismatches or closeouts. In the moments where he beats his man, it’s difficult for him to gain momentum with his second and third steps.

His lack of elite half-court explosiveness makes Risacher more reliant on his length and footwork to find the open space and finish at the rim. He does show some versatility in his below-the-rim finishes, being able to convert shots off-balance and showing touch on floaters, runners, and other non-layup finishes around the basket.

His inability to handle the ball in tight spaces also limits his upside as a playmaker for others. His live-dribble passing is non-existent, and even in the pick-and-roll (where he ranks in the 14th percentile on pick-and-roll ball-handler plays according to Synergy), he’s limited as a passer not by a lack of vision, but by the lack of advantages that he can create off-the-dribble due to his limitations as a ball-handler.

The quick vision, however, is there, and Risacher should make an impact in situations that won’t require him to create advantage or dribble through tight spaces, namely, leading the break, making the extra pass on the perimeter, and finding cutters from a stationary position.

The word “limitation” has appeared quite often in this piece, which is a sign that Risacher’s offensive profile-besides the shooting-has its flaws. Fortunately, Risacher also brings a ton of value on the defensive end of the floor.

JL Bourg had Risacher picking up opposing ball-handlers full-court, which was probably a scary sight for guards in the French league. Standing at 6’8.5”, Risacher’s size and length were imposing, as he was able to simply smother opposing ball-handlers, contesting their drives and forcing them into tough shots and turnovers.

Risacher is not just big but also really mobile, possessing quick feet and long legs that allow him to stay in front of opponents and cover ground with ease. When he’s attacked off the dribble, Risacher is able to flip his hips quickly and move laterally to stay attached to drivers and bother their shots in the paint. He’s also excellent at navigating screens, having a tremendous ability to get skinny, forcing ball-handlers to take tough angles off screens, in which they risk turning over the ball.

Is Risacher going to be someone who defends opposing ball-handlers full-time at the NBA level? Likely not, because despite his mobility he’s still exploitable by smaller, quicker guards. Risacher is clearly more comfortable when he can position himself closer to the basket, giving opposing guards more space and daring them to shoot, which allows him to take a shorter route if he has to cover the drive. While that might have worked in the French LNB, it will certainly be a different story at the NBA, considering that most lead guards are able to shoot off the dribble, at least when they are given enough space.

Risacher was not only impactful as a perimeter defender, but he also made his presence felt around the basket. Risacher blocked 0.7 shots per 36 minutes, which came mostly from his timely weakside rotations. When he’s defending off the ball, Risacher is consistently on time with his rotations whenever dribble penetration occurs or when the roll-man slips to the rim, acting as the last line of defense.

The versatility that Risacher offers is impressive. The holy grail of an NBA defender is someone who can “defend 1-through-5.” I don’t think there are many players who can do that, at least full-time, and Risacher is not one of them. With that being said, Risacher is one of the few players who can act both as the first and the last line of defense for his team, which is both rare and extremely valuable.

There are technique aspects that could be improved, his positioning and awareness as a ball-defender on screens could improve and at times he gets put in jail by opposing ball-handlers. Ultimately, I trust any coaching staff to work through those aspects, and I’d be comfortable betting on Risacher who is not just versatile and impactful, but also has the right approach to the game on the defensive end of the floor: not taking plays off, while attempting and making plays outside of his comfort zone time and time again.

We made it.

This is the final single-player piece ahead of the 2024 NBA Draft, not only from me, but from the entire No Ceilings team. We still have two days of pre-draft discourse left and Risacher will be one of the hot topics heading into draft night, as he’s widely projected to be the number one player off the board on Wednesday.

The conversation around him, however, has less to do with his skill set and more with him not fitting the traditional mold of a number one pick, and I get it: If you’re looking for a player with upside as an elite self-creator or primary initiator, Risacher doesn’t seem to be the guy. However, he can develop into an elite complementary piece for a team that already has an offensive franchise cornerstone, providing elite off-ball shooting and versatile defense.

While that might not be encouraing for teams who are picking at the top of the draft, please remember that this is not any draft. It’s the 2024 NBA Draft.

Ultimately, while Risacher is not the top player on my board heading into draft night, I do understand why he could go number one. There’s little to no certainty in this year’s draft field, and in the midst of that jumbled mess, there’s something comforting in finding a player who knows exactly what he’s good at and does that often, while also trying to avoid doing what he knows he can’t do at an elite level.

If that sounds boring, I also understand. People in relationships tend to confuse comfort with boredom in the same way that NBA teams confuse safety with low upside. Teams will be tempted by the potential home run swings that can be taken in the top five, and someone, inevitably, will strike out.

I’m sure that it won’t be the team that takes Risacher.