NBA summer-league disappointments: Zaccharie Risacher, Alex Sarr and more

LAS VEGAS — Before we get to the bad news, let’s start with a Victor Wembanyama-sized caveat: Summer-league performance doesn’t exactly predict NBA production. Not anywhere close, in fact. A year ago, Wembanyama himself shot 2 of 13 in his summer-league debut; his season turned out OK.

More topically, perhaps, Atlanta Hawks fans might recall another high lottery pick struggling through a miserable 4-of-20 shooting night in his first summer game and shooting 12 of 52 over his first three. No, that player wasn’t Zaccharie Risacher — it was Trae Young. His career seemed to survive the poor start.

That said, the so-called French invasion of the 2024 draft is off to a decidedly slow start. Top pick Risacher tapped out after two games with a quad contusion, shooting 11 of 28 from the floor in 59 minutes. Second overall pick Alex Sarr shot 0 of 15 from the field in his third game and only scored two points in his fourth for the Washington Wizards. The sixth pick, Tidjane Saluan, had some moments pushing the ball in transition but shot 1 of 10 from 3 in his three games for the Charlotte Hornets; hyped as an energy guy, he failed to record a single block or steal. Finally, 24th pick Pacôme Dadiet also struggled mightily in his minutes for the New York Knicks, shooting 12 of 39 from the field with a 4.09 PER in five games. His biggest highlight was slapping the board in midair after a dunk.

Their struggles, at least, didn’t come under a hot spotlight. Normally, top picks command massive attention in Vegas, but this year wasn’t exactly Wembymania. The two Frenchmen at the top of the draft failed to resonate with the masses, and that was clear before a game was played: The marketing poster for Las Vegas Summer League featured Bronny James but didn’t include Risacher.

It went on from there. Consider the alleged marquee matchup of the top two picks on the first day of summer league. Its arrival was greeted by thousands of fans leaving Thomas & Mack Center, having just seen the Los Angeles Lakers and James. During Atlanta’s second game, against fourth pick Stephon Castle and the San Antonio Spurs, the TV broadcast bizarrely spent much of the third quarter interviewing Isaiah Thomas, who has never played for either team and appeared in 31 just NBA games over the past four seasons.

Part of the reason, of course, is that this was a different type of draft, with no obvious generational talent. It wasn’t even clear what the main prize would be when the Hawks won the lottery. Additionally, the top two picks are more renowned for their defense than offense; despite their lofty draft status, neither Risacher nor Sarr projects as a high-volume on-ball player.

Those two are the first we’ll discuss when examining a few players who struggled at summer league. (I’ll also be writing about those who played well later in the week.)

Zaccharie Risacher, Hawks

The draft’s top pick only played two games, but he showed flashes of spicy ball skills to go with impressive height for a wing at 6-10 (and the Hawks do see him as a true wing, by the way, somebody who can reliably guard twos and threes). He had a coast-to-coast glide for a lefty dunk in transition in his first game and a behind-the-back dribble into a behind-the-back dish to a corner shooter that didn’t make the evening highlight reels because the shot missed.

Risacher also showed a bit of craft with his off hand, using an in-and-out left-handed dribble to set up a lefty bank shot over Sarr’s length for his first summer bucket.

That said, the handle can still get loose — he had a mess of a turnover against San Antonio where it got away from him — and the shooting was erratic; he was only 4 of 16 from 3 in his two summer games and 3 of 7 from the line.

The shooting question looms over much of the projection with Risacher, given that his season in France was a bit of an outlier from his previous seasons. Him getting up 16 triples in 59 minutes is a positive sign on its own — shooters tell on themselves by where and when they launch as much as by how often it goes in, especially in small samples — and the Hawks are believers in his shooting.

More impressive might be Risacher’s focus on the right things. After his first summer-league game, in which he scored 18 points, he spent the postgame interview session lamenting that he didn’t play better defense.

“I’m kind of mad about that because that’s not the player that I am,” Risacher said. “Defensively, it’s really important in basketball. I feel like my team needs that from me.”

Hawks summer-league coach Ronald Nored said Risacher’s attention to that detail shows he “cares about the right things.”

“How many guys are talking about their defense after a game? The fact he’s thinking about that, that he’s conscious of that and where he wants to get better … says a lot about who he is as a person and a pro,” Nored said.

On a lighter note, Risacher also absorbed some ribbing from teammates for airballing a free throw late in the first game, when sweaty hands in an unusually warm gym caused him to lose his grip.

“That was the first time in my life that happened. I don’t know how to say in English — the sweating? — I realized in the middle of my shot and was like, ‘No, I can’t stop,’ so I just threw it,” Risacher said. “My teammates were laughing. I laughed too, but I had to make sure I hit the second one.”

Risacher still needs to get stronger and prove he can shoot consistently, but the pathway is there for a “Shane Battier with more offense” type of career. That sounds unsatisfying for a top pick, but that might just be the nature of this draft.

Alex Sarr, Wizards

Sarr’s final tally after four summer games: 9 of 47 from the floor, 22.6 percent true shooting, 3.8 PER. Yikes. That PER mark was the worst of any first-rounder at summer league.

Let’s not just focus on the make-or-miss (or miss-and-miss, in Sarr’s case). Shooting variance can lead us astray when evaluating a short tournament like this. Assists and blocks translate from summer league much more reliably than field goal percentages. Sarr showed facility as a passer, with 13 dimes in four games, and a rim protector. He posted a 7.5-percent block rate in summer league and visibly affected several other attempts. Defensively, he should be NBA-ready from Day 1.

GO DEEPER

Alex Sarr, Bub Carrington show they could be game-changers Washington needs

Sarr’s biggest areas of concern are his hands and shot profile. His passing gives him potential as a short roller, but he has to catch the ball first; the same goes for his work on the glass, where contested rebounds are a real problem. In both situations, there are too many times when he looks like a backup tight end trying to trap the ball against his pads.

To go with that, Sarr had 17 3-point attempts in summer league and only four free-throw attempts. Despite the ugly percentages, he looks comfortable shooting off the dribble going to his left, hitting two triples in the opening games against Atlanta going that way. But he’s waaay too into shooting pull-up jumpers right now; at some point, he has to take advantage of the fact that he’s 7-feet tall.

Dillingham played much, much better in his final summer game, with 25 points and 12 assists against what was left of Orlando’s team Sunday.

That said, the first four games were pretty rough for a player the Wolves gave up an unprotected first and a pick swap to select eighth in the 2024 draft. In particular, what stood out for a little fast guy was how much trouble he was having getting separation and blowing past defenders, even in switch situations. At his size (6-1 and just 164 pounds), Dillingham needs to leave his defender in the dust to create enough room for a shot, and there were too many times where he technically got by his man but still was in no position to shoot because the trailing defender was too close and much bigger.

Wolves optimists will note the parallels between Dillingham and Young above — they are almost the exact same size, to the pound, and Young had similar trouble in his first few summer-league games before gaining his footing at the end. Even as he struggled to score, Dillingham had 38 dimes in five games. His ability as a lob passer seems notable given the bigs on Minnesota’s roster.

LENNYYYYYYY pic.twitter.com/sREHdgaxNi

— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) July 21, 2024

Milwaukee’s summer league in general was an abject disaster, with the Bucks losing all five games by an average of 18 points, roster players MarJon Beauchamp and Andre Jackson struggling mightily (Jackson also broke his finger) and two-way Jaylin Galloway looking totally overmatched. (Chris Livingston was perhaps the one ray of hope; Tyler Smith wasn’t bad but weirdly only played 22 minutes a game.)

Johnson, the Bucks’ first-round pick, had some moments, including a 22-point game against the LA Clippers, but also shot 0 of 12 against Washington in the finale and failed to establish his bona fides as either a point guard (14 assists in five games) or a shooter (10 of 31 from 3 and an identical 10 of 31 mark from 2).

None of this was terribly shocking given how the teenager performed in Australia last season, which gets to the other point: Johnson was the runaway winner in my informal, “Which draft pick shocked you most?” poll of scouts and execs at summer league. Suffice to say many teams had him much lower than 23rd on their boards. Even those who were more bullish on Johnson wondered why the Bucks didn’t just wait until their pick at No. 33 to nab him if they liked him that much, as he almost certainly would have been there. Nothing that happened in Vegas changed anyone’s minds on that front.

GO DEEPER

Bucks summer-league observations: AJ Johnson’s speed, MarJon Beauchamp’s struggles

Of the first-round picks who played at summer league, Dunn probably did the most to arouse suspicions about his long-term viability. The rookie from Virginia was selected 28th by Phoenix, mainly for his defense, but questions about his offense drove down his draft stock. Dunn scored just 23 points in 102 minutes, shot only 1 of 13 from 3 and drew one measly free-throw attempt (a miss) in four games. More surprisingly was his anemic work on the glass, with just an 8-percent rebound rate for a player who will have to make his living as an athletic-energizer forward.

Jarace Walker was one of a few 2023 lottery picks to see action this month in Las Vegas. (Troy Taormina / USA Today)

While most of the 2023 lottery class either graduated from summer league after solid rookie seasons or were quickly excused after a couple of strong games, Walker headlined a late lottery class where things weren’t as peachy.

Walker hardly played last season and has no obvious role heading into 2024-25. Indiana decided to experiment with Walker in summer league, putting the ball in his hands and having him operate as a point forward. It was … interesting. Walker showed more handle than we saw with the Pacers, or even in his college days at Houston, but he also had 22 turnovers in four games.

Oddly, the most promising part was the shooting: Walker made 11 of 25 from 3 and 15 of 19 from the line in Vegas. Even with that, however, his overall stat line as a second-year lottery pick in summer league was pretty meh.

Much like Walker above, it seemed like the Pels wanted to experiment with their 2023 lottery pick in more of a high-usage situation. Hawkins played all five games for New Orleans and carried a 31.2-percent usage rate, heavy stuff for a guy who is supposed to be an off-ball shooting specialist. Let’s just say maybe he should go back to that role; Hawkins drew heaps of fouls but finished with a 28.1-percent shooting mark from the floor and 10 assists against 18 turnovers.

With a player like Hawkins who has already had significant NBA playing time, I take summer-league stats with an entire pillar of salt, but his PER of 7.25 was ghastly.

It’s tough for an off-ball player like Hendricks to make a massive impact at summer league, but you would have liked to see a bit more of the things he’s supposed to be good at in his role. Hendricks played in six summer games and did enough interesting things on defense to keep hope alive, but for a combo big, his rebounding was pretty lame (11.8-percent rebound rate), and he only made 13 of his 28 2-point attempts. For a secondary player, 13 turnovers in six games is too many.

Hendricks, the ninth pick in last year’s draft, shows promise with his stretch game — he made 10 of 26 triples in Vegas and shot 37.9 percent for the Jazz last season — but if he’s going to be stationed out there, you’d like to see him get more up. He was a raw draft pick, and you can see where the arrows can point upward in the future, but he looked like a fringe rotation guy this summer.

Whitehead’s line in four summer-league games: 6 of 41 from the field, 2 of 24 from 3, 22.5-percent true shooting and a PER of -0.93. Yes, that’s a minus sign. Yikes. Of all the recent first-rounders in Vegas (Whitehead was the 22nd pick in 2023), his performance might have been the most jarringly worrisome. The misses were rough too.

Look under the hood, and Whitehead did some things well — he had eight stocks (steals + blocks) in 83 minutes and a 12.5-percent rebound rate — but you can’t shoot this badly and survive as an NBA player.

That’s where we get to the other part of the story. Whitehead only played six games in his rookie year — two in the NBA and four in the G League — missing time with multiple foot surgeries. He seemed way off balance on several of his outside shooting attempts. One wonders if those two things are correlated, and if so, if it’s something he can get in the gym and fix over the summer.