There is a basketball court in the backyard of a home in Lyon, France. Green plastic tiles form the flooring. The space is surrounded by trees.
“It is the best court of the world,” said Stéphane Risacher, who has supervised this Gallic corner of hoopdom for the better part of the past 20 years.
This humble court matters much more now in Atlanta – and the entirety of the basketball world – than it did at the beginning of this week. It is where Zaccharie Risacher first learned to play, starting a journey that has reached a plateau that no one could have predicted on that court in Lyon or elsewhere – on Wednesday, he became the first overall pick in the NBA draft. Stéphane introduced this basketball greenhouse to Atlanta on Friday, when his son was presented to local media at the Hawks training complex.
“This is where a lot of things happened,” Stéphane said, showing media members a photo of the court on his phone.
How the next legs of Risacher’s basketball career will play out is a mystery. He is the first pick of a draft that has been seen as unusually bereft of impactful talent. As such, not many are ticketing Risacher – a 6-foot-9 wing player whose strengths are his defensive versatility and his 3-point shooting – for stardom, unlike last year’s top pick, fellow Frenchman Victor Wembanyama. Risacher also joins a team whose track record for picking winners in the draft is modest.
But Risacher’s rise from the third largest city in France, known more for its otherworldly cuisine than its propensity for generating NBA talent, is worth appreciating all the same. One doesn’t reach this point by accident. And it’s not every day that first overall picks in any sport come Atlanta’s way, and then even more infrequently on a path that started with such an unlikely starting point.
Said Risacher, “This is crazy.”
The 19-year-old Frenchman did have one significant advantage in his basketball rearing. His father played professionally in France and is a member of the French basketball hall of fame. He played on the 2000 Olympic team that won a silver medal and, in fact, was on the floor when Vince Carter unleashed one of the more spectacular and merciless dunks ever perpetrated, the famed “Dunk of Death” over Frédéric Weis.
“I remember that it was one of the most incredible moments of sports history,” Stéphane said. “Nobody was expecting it. That’s pretty much it.”
Risacher and his younger sister, Ainhoa, grew up in a family where basketball was part of life. Stéphane said he liked for his children to play sports “because it’s a very good way to teach them about life.”
Stéphane said he and wife, Sandrine, tried to make basketball enjoyable for Zaccharie and Ainhoa, while also being intentional about teaching the game. But it was not with an end goal of raising the NBA’s first overall pick.
“You don’t think about this,” he said. “You just do things the best you can. I don’t want to be like, ‘We trained them for this.’ We tried to make sure that they have fun playing.”
And yet, starting out from the backyard court in Lyon, they have reared children who are among the world’s best for their age. Last summer, Ainhoa led the France U-16 national team to the European championship and was named the tournament MVP. And, out of the millions of young basketball players in the world who were poured into the funnel that ultimately would identify the first pick of the 2024 NBA draft, Zaccharie emerged.
“Very proud of Zaccharie,” Stéphane said. “We all are.”
La Famille Risacher is bound by more than le basket. Late in the evening on draft night in New York after he had been chosen No. 1 and fulfilled his media obligations, he melted into tears as he was embraced by his family. I asked Risacher what interests he had outside of basketball. His answer was spending time with Ainhoa.
“We’re really close to each other,” he said. “We grew up together, and just seeing her makes me happy and makes me disconnect from the real life.”
At the best court of the world, one of Stéphane’s priorities was cultivating in his children an all-around game, to be able to perform every aspect of the sport.
“And when you get these habits, then you are ready to go for the next level because you are going to be aware of every aspect of the game,” he said. “I always teach like that.”
Stéphane’s son absorbed the message as he moved up the French club system. His favorite player growing up was Kevin Durant, precisely because of his versatility.
“I like to think that he can do everything,” Risacher said. “The fact that he looks unstoppable, that’s something that I’m looking for. That’s where I try to take inspiration.”
That ability to do multiple things well was part of his allure to the Hawks, who turned down offers to trade out of the No. 1 slot in order to ensure they could acquire the player they identified as the best player in the draft pool. A day later, it again proved an attractive commodity in another wing prospect, Serbian wing and second-round selection Nikola Djurisic.
“For these guys, just playing at that wing position with the athleticism scores that they have and size that they have and different components about their games, the versatility, that gives us a really nice canvas for our group and allows our coaches something really fun to work with,” general manager Landry Fields said about his two newest additions.
In Risacher, the Hawks now have a wing player who shoots the 3-point shot well for someone his size, moves smartly without the ball, runs the floor well and can defend multiple positions. There are questions about the heights he can reach as a pro, but the Hawks at least have a player who appears committed to exploring the limits of his potential.
“(Hawks fans) are going to see somebody who is ready to die on the court,” Risacher said. “I’m just the kind of player who’s going to give everything.”
The best court of the world would ask for nothing less.
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