{"id":1873085,"date":"2026-04-09T01:39:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1873085"},"modified":"2026-04-09T01:39:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:39:32","slug":"zaccharie-risacher-top-pick-of-2024-nba-draft-a-healthy-scratch-in-hawks-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1873085","title":{"rendered":"Zaccharie Risacher, top pick of 2024 NBA Draft, a healthy scratch in Hawks\u2019 loss"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Welcome to adulthood, Zaccharie Risacher.<\/p>\n

The first pick in the 2024 NBA draft spent his 21st birthday glued to the Atlanta bench in the Hawks\u2019 122-116 loss to Cleveland on Wednesday, the first \u201cDNP-coach\u2019s decision\u201d \u2014 or healthy scratch \u2014 of his career.<\/p>\n

Risacher started the first two-thirds of the season but was removed from the starting group after a moribund 128-97 home loss to Miami dropped Atlanta to 27-31, with CJ McCollum taking his place. Since then, the Hawks have gone 18-4 and risen from the fringes of the playoff chase to the fifth position in the East. (Risacher did make one more start, in a game that All-Star forward Jalen Johnson missed).<\/p>\n

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When Risacher first went to the bench, the Hawks talked about continuing to get him minutes and progress his development. However, the Hawks\u2019 emergence in the East playoff chase has complicated that objective. Risacher\u2019s minutes also dwindled once newly acquired Jonathan Kuminga returned to full strength from a knee injury; with Kuminga overlapping positionally with Risacher, Atlanta rarely needs to turn to both.<\/p>\n

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That became apparent when Risacher played a career-low seven minutes in Monday\u2019s loss to New York. After that game, Hawks coach Quin Snyder blamed circumstances rather than anything Risacher had done, and said the Hawks are tightening bench minutes because the current stretch is essentially Atlanta\u2019s playoffs (Atlanta could have clinched a playoff spot with a win).<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think if you look at what I\u2019ve been talking about, with this being the playoffs, I think Zach\u2019s been done all the things that I\u2019ve talked about that we\u2019ve asked,\u201d said Snyder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe only have so many guys that we can actually put in the game, and in certain situations we\u2019re playing Nickeil (Alexander-Walker) and Dyson (Daniels) and those guys more minutes, (so) people just get squeezed. JK (Kuminga) played a little more, so those minutes come from somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s not anything about one player. That\u2019s just the game \u2026 I think we\u2019re past the point where we\u2019re looking at individual players trying to dissect whether they should be playing more or less.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys that are out there the majority of the time are the Dysons and Nickeils and JJs (Jalen Johnson), Zach gets caught in that. We need him to keep doing the things that he\u2019s been doing. I mean, he\u2019s great. He\u2019s been crashing the glass. Those are big plays for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, however, Snyder went a step further. With Corey Kispert inserted into the rotation ahead of Risacher, there were no minutes left.<\/p>\n

With Atlanta\u2019s last two opponents (Cleveland and New York) also being the Hawks\u2019 most likely playoff foes, Risacher\u2019s playing time situation doesn\u2019t seem likely to change in the near future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to adulthood, Zaccharie Risacher. The first pick in the 2024 NBA draft spent his 21st birthday glued to the Atlanta bench in the Hawks\u2019 122-116 loss to Cleveland on Wednesday, the first \u201cDNP-coach\u2019s decision\u201d \u2014 or healthy scratch \u2014 of his career. Risacher started the first two-thirds of the season but was removed from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1873085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1873085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1873085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1873085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1873085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}