Why Hawks Traded Former No. 1 Pick Zaccharie Risacher After Only Two NBA Seasons

The Hawks have been quite active this offseason on the trade market and executed another on Sunday—ending 2024 No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher’s tenure with the franchise in the process.

At high noon ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Atlanta had agreed to a three-team deal involving the Thunder and Mavericks. The trade sends Lu Dort and Ryan Nembhard to Atlanta, while Risacher is heading to Dallas; Oklahoma City receives no players but a trio of second-round picks for its All-Defense wing defender, Dort.

The big takeaways of the deal: the Hawks got better on paper and the Thunder got much-needed salary relief. Dort will form a terrifying tandem on the defensive end with Dyson Daniels and coach Quin Snyder can trot out lineups loaded with elite defenders at any point. Ditching Dort’s expiring deal, which will pay him $17 million this year, will save OKC a ton of money as the team finally gets under the second apron after several similar moves this summer; general manager Sam Presti already did a deal with Hawks GM Onsi Saleh for the same purpose with the Aaron Wiggins trade.

The Mavericks giving up Nembhard is a bit confusing given his successful rookie year as a lead point guard alongside Cooper Flagg but it’s no surprise that new president Masai Ujiri is looking to shake things up in his first offseason leading the franchise.

It should not be lost, however, that the trade also marks the rare trade of a No. 1 pick still on his rookie contract. Only two years after hearing his name called first overall in the ‘24 draft, Risacher is on his way out. He’s the first No. 1 pick to leave the team that drafted him since Karl-Anthony Towns was traded by the Timberwolves to the Knicks in 2024. Risacher is also the first No. 1 pick to be traded within his first three seasons since Markelle Fultz; the last top pick to be traded within his first two seasons was Anthony Bennett.

Fultz and Bennett do not exactly make for illustrious company for a top draft prospect. Yet Risacher joined their ranks on Sunday. How did it happen?

Why the Hawks traded former No. 1 pick Risacher after two years

Zaccharie Risacher and Adam Silve — Risacher is now on the Mavericks, joining 2025 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg. | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

The simplest reason? Risacher just isn’t good enough right now to help the Hawks get to where they want to go.

The French wing was taken with the first pick two years ago as part of a draft class widely viewed as one of the worst of the century. Atlanta moved up the lottery to claim the No. 1 selection but there was little fanfare because there was not a single prospect seen as truly generational. Every NBA draft brings useful players to some degree but it was rather difficult to see where those players would come from in 2024 and it was a near-universal opinion that it was severely lacking in star power.

As a result, the Hawks opted to bet on potential and went with Risacher No. 1. As a prospect his biggest positives were his young age, obvious athletic potential and elite dimensions. If things broke right, it wasn’t hard to see a future in which Risacher developed into the sort of long, athletic two-way wing that every contender is searching for. But potential was all he had to offer—Risacher scored a hair over 10 points per game in the top French professional league heading into the draft. Which is laudable for an 18-year-old but not exactly a statline that screams future All-Star.

He was a project, in other words. Two years later, he remains a project. To date Risacher has averaged 11.1 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.1 assists for his NBA career. His rookie season was solid, if unspectacular; at 19 years old the French wing scored 12.6 points per game while shooting 35.5% from three and finished second in ROY voting. But as the Hawks took a step forward to contention in Risacher’s sophomore season, he took a step back. Risacher’s scoring average dropped down to 9.6 in 2025–26 and he wound up dropping out of Snyder’s rotation for a stretch in January. Risacher eventually made it back onto the floor for short spurts but was clearly not trusted as an option on the wing, a perception confirmed when he played 22 minutes total in Atlanta’s six-game playoff series loss to New York.

There’s still reason to believe Risacher can have a career in the NBA. He has good touch as a shooter and tries hard enough defensively that he can hamper most opponents, especially once his body fills out some more—Risacher is still only 21 years old. There’s an outline of a passable three-and-D player in his game. But right this second, he is a net negative rotation player who can’t be trusted to do much other than make the occasional shot. And the Hawks have no room for such players as the franchise tries to take a step forward.

Nevertheless, Atlanta wasn’t trying to ditch him. Risacher’s lucrative rookie contract meant he was the neatest salary to use in any trade as well as the most expendable player on the roster making over $10 million. The franchise sought to upgrade the roster with that salary and did so by landing Dort, an elite defender with championship experience, and a true point guard in Nembhard. They weren’t looking to get off Risacher’s deal at all costs, for whatever that’s worth, but the opportunity presented itself.

Risacher’s biggest flaw was that he didn’t develop quickly enough for the organization’s liking. If he proved worthy of playoff minutes this postseason then the Hawks might’ve rolled the dice that he could be part of their young core along with Jalen Johnson and Nickeil Alexander-Walker going forward. But he remains too big of a question mark—if and when he’ll become a good enough player to help a championship team (and what kind of player he will be if that happens) is totally up in the air.

Atlanta decided to chase a known quantity in Dort instead. And it’s hard to blame them.

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