Hawks Zaccharie Risacher has made strides on and off the court. The rookie has shown consistent improvement throughout the year, especially as he’s grown more comfortable with the English language.
This is the first time that the 19-year-old has spent an extensive amount of time away from his native France after the Hawks drafted him with the first overall pick in June. Risacher arrived in Atlanta one day after the NBA Draft and has since found himself immersed in the language.
“I feel like I’m learning every day, and my English has started to get better,” Risacher said. “Just being able to speak with everybody around here, it can be at the facility, within the organization, but also in real life with like people outside in my building, when I go to restaurants or whatever, I speak English all the time. So it really helped me to get better.”
To supplement the immersion, Risacher watches movies.
“I watch a lot of movies in English, and that’s with English subtitles,” he said. “And when I’ve already watched it, trying to watch without subtitles. That’s how I do it and I can tell you, it’s really helpful for me.”
Of the movies he has watched in English, so far, Risacher lists ‘Coach Carter’ and ‘He Got Game’ as his favorites.
Risacher has not missed a single game this season. The Hawks have played 38 games through the first 12 weeks of the NBA season. He has started in 36 of them after the team bumped him to the starting unit with several injuries to the rotation early in the year.
His continued focus on taking care of his body outside of the gym has allowed him to be durable. So, he used the extra off day the Hawks received after the postponement of Saturday’s game to ensure he handled his recovery well.
“So I focus on recovery first,” Risacher said. “Because we had such a long road trip, I feel like my body was kind of tired and I need to recover a little bit. So like stretching and yoga all that type of stuff, because gotta work on my hip stability too.”
In 38 games, Risacher has averaged 10.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game. His jumpers from 3 haven’t fallen as consistently as he would like but he has continued to attack the basket and defend like the Hawks need him to.
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