NEW YORK: First, Victor Wembanyama, now Zaccharie Risacher.
These days, American college players have to wait their turn in the NBA draft. It’s someone else’s time at the top.
Vive la France!
The Atlanta Hawks took Risacher with the No. 1 pick on Wednesday night and France landed three players in the top six in a historic night for the country.
“That’s amazing,” Risacher said. “We try to represent our country and so, glad to be a part of it. You know there is more players coming in.”
Risacher doesn’t come with the enormous height or hype of Wembanyama, the towering center who went to San Antonio last year and went on to win the Rookie of the Year award.
But the Hawks saw him as the best choice in what has been viewed as a draft absent of elite talent.
The 19-year-old forward was the winner of the best young player award in the French League last season and beat out fellow Frenchman Alex Sarr in the race to be the top pick.
When he did, it made NBA draft history. This is the first time that the draft has gone consecutive years without the No. 1 pick being someone who played at an American college.
“Shows the amount of talent we have in France,” Sarr said. “Really excited for Zach. I think our national team is going to be really good.”
Sarr went second to the Washington Wizards after playing last year with Perth in Australia’s National Basketball League.
The Hawks had only a 3 percent chance of winning the lottery to earn the No. 1 pick, and there was no obvious choice waiting once they did. Most mock drafts were split between Risacher and Sarr, and Atlanta also worked out UConn center Donovan Clingan.
Houston made Kentucky freshman Reed Sheppard the No. 3 pick. A one-and-done college player had topped the draft for 13 straight years from 2010-22 before Wembanyama ended that streak.
Now the draft is under French rule.
Stephon Castle of the two-time reigning national champion Huskies made it two straight college freshmen when San Antonio took him at No. 4, the Spurs’ first of two picks in the top 10. They also held the No. 8 selection.
The Detroit Pistons took Ron Holland of the G League Ignite with the fifth pick before the Hornets took Tidjane Salaun, who played last year for Cholet Basket in France.
“I think the basketball in France is improved that’s why we are here in this draft,” Saluan said.
Clingan, who won titles in both seasons in Storrs, finally went to Portland at No. 7.
The draft moved to a two-night format this year, with the first round being held as usual at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the second round to be held Thursday at ESPN’s Seaport District studios.
The green room was filled with a number of unfamiliar faces who will head to the NBA from other leagues or other countries. A player who would have been one of the most recognizable was not in the arena: Zach Edey, the two-time AP Player of the Year from Purdue, was taken at No. 9 by Memphis.
Vive la France! Hawks make Zaccharie Risacher second straight Frenchman taken No. 1 in NBA draft
https://arab.news/b2h78
Vive la France! Hawks make Zaccharie Risacher second straight Frenchman taken No. 1 in NBA draft
- France landed three players in the top six in a historic night for the country
Qatar’s Al-Attiyah wins Stage 6 for Dacia, retakes Dakar lead
- Al-Attiyah, 55, has now completed 19 successive Dakars with at least one stage win every time
RIYADH: Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah will lead the Dakar Rally into its second and final week after winning the sixth stage in the Saudi desert on Friday to take over at the top from South African rival Henk Lategan.
Al-Attiyah, a five-time Dakar winner now competing for the Dacia Sandriders, had been second overnight but turned a deficit of more than three minutes into a 6 minutes and 10 second advantage over the 326km timed stage between Hail and Riyadh.
Saturday is a rest day before the rally resumes in Riyadh on Sunday with seven more stages to the finish in Yanbu on the Red Sea coast on Jan. 17.
Al-Attiyah won Friday’s stage by two minutes and 58 seconds from teammate and nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, Dacia’s first Dakar one-two, with Toyota’s American Seth Quintero third.
Overall, three different manufacturers filled podium positions with Toyota’s Lategan second and Ford’s Nani Roma third — his first time on the virtual podium since 2019.
Al-Attiyah, 55, has now completed 19 successive Dakars with at least one stage win every time.
Friday was his career 49th stage win in the car category — one off the record held jointly by Ari Vatanen and “Mr Dakar” Stephane Peterhansel.
Spaniard Carlos Sainz, father of the Formula One driver and a four-time Dakar winner still racing hard at the age of 63, was in fourth place for Ford with teammate Mattias Ekstrom fifth and Loeb sixth.
American Mitch Guthrie, stage winner on Thursday for Ford, dropped to seventh from sixth.
In the motorcycle category there was no change at the top, although leader and defending champion Daniel Sanders was handed a 6-minute penalty for riding at 98kph in a zone limited to 50kph.
KTM rider Sanders now leads Honda’s American Ricky Brabec, the stage winner after the Australian’s penalty, by 45 seconds with Argentine rider Luciano Benavides more than 10 minutes behind in third.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster all day. Unfortunately, I got a speeding penalty, so that will set me back a bit,” said Sanders.
“I just pushed as much as I could today but it’s hard to do good in the sand, especially opening. I did the best I could and I’ve got to stop making silly mistakes. I haven’t pieced this first week together so well.”
