The Detroit Pistons & the Atlanta Hawks Have Similar Wing Problems
Neither Zaccharie Risacher nor Ron Holland II, who both were taken in the top-5 of the 2024 NBA Draft, look like franchise cornerstones through two seasons in Detroit and Atlanta.
It was a very successful season for both the Detroit Pistons and the Atlanta Hawks in 2025-26. I don’t suspect it would be a surprise to anyone if they both won 50-plus games next season. Both franchises are in a great position to win many basketball games over the next couple of seasons with at least one certified star player in Cade Cunningham and Jalen Johnson, respectively. Two stars that fans of both franchises should be delighted to watch lead their basketball team for a long time. They also have one other interesting thing in common right now — both franchises used a top-5 pick on a wing in the 2024 NBA Draft that fell out of the rotation down the stretch this season. Those two players, Zaccharie Risacher, who the Hawks selected at No. 1 overall, and Ron Holland II, who the Pistons selected at No. 5 overall, are suddenly on the outside looking in on two franchises that are trying to become real, bona fide championship contenders.
For the Hawks, the Risacher dilemma stings a bit more. Frankly, it has to sting more with Hawks taking Risacher at No. 1 overall, weak class or not. Atlanta lucked their way into the No. 1 overall pick between Victor Wembanyama and Cooper Flagg draft classes. It’s not Atlanta’s fault, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.
The Pistons missed at No. 5, No. 7, and No. 15 in recent years, but their No. 1 overall pick is already a top-10 player in the NBA. Detroit also lucked out in having the No. 1 overall pick in a draft where the No. 1 overall pick was obvious.
The Hawks took a player at No. 20 overall a few years prior and have developed him into a star who joined a select few to put up the kind of numbers he did in his first All-Star season in Atlanta. Different paths for both franchises to find their franchise cornerstone, but both drafted and developed their best player.
Time is more on Atlanta’s side, though, as the Pistons were the best regular-season team in the East this season. The timeline in the Motor City has sped up. There is a lot more pressure to win now in Detroit than there is to win now in Atlanta. Similar to the angst of whiffing on the No. 1 overall pick, there is a lot of angst that follows being the No. 1 seed in your conference and not even advancing to the conference finals. (Not to mention narrowly avoiding a first-round upset to an eight-seed, too.)
The Pistons have huge offseason decisions to make on their core guys in Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, among several other key players, while the Hawks have already locked up their key core guys in Johnson, Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Oneyka Okongwu. Sure, they have to decide on what to do with guys like Jonathan Kuminga, Corey Kispert, CJ McCollum, Buddy Hield, and Jock Landale. Most of those are big decisions for Atlanta, yes, but you could argue that the electric run of wins and fun from the middle of February onward bought the franchise a lot of grace, even with the brutal demise at the hands of the New York Knicks in their first-round series. The Hawks were a delightful underdog story this season in the East after the Trae Young and Kristaps Porzingis trades, while the Pistons looked like Goliath, only to be eliminated in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
It’s not as though the Hawks don’t have any big decisions of their own to make this summer. Atlanta has the No. 8 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, and it would be an upset if the franchise did not take a guard or a big man with the selection if they stay at that spot. The last time we saw Atlanta, they averaged 88 points per 100 possessions in their blowout elimination loss to the Knicks, per CleaningTheGlass. Their offense, particularly in the halfcourt, got away from them after Game 3. While it was a jarring way for the Hawks to be eliminated at the time, New York is up 2-0 on the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals as of this writing and has won nine-straight playoff games. That first-round exit, as painful as it was, proved to be perfectly reasonable.
To advance further in the postseason next year, Atlanta has to get bigger to help Okongwu, and perhaps that includes Michigan’s Aday Mara and his outrageous wingspan at No. 8. They also need their first-round pick from a season ago, Asa Newell, to become a factor, too. The Hawks have a long offseason ahead of them, but as thin as the frontcourt was down the stretch for Atlanta, the depth there could be flipped in quite a hurry. Mouhamed Gueye is in the final year of his deal, and Atlanta has a team-option decision to make on him, but you hope that’s picked up, and then see where things are next summer. He’s a plus-defender and a winning player for Atlanta. Landale proved to be a welcome late-season addition and provided another look inside for Snyder. His absence was felt majorly in that series against the Knicks. Okongwu is a fantastic player on a fantastic contract. That’s several different bigs with several different skillsets for Snyder to mix and match next season. It doesn’t mean Atlanta will be able to have quite that much depth, and we’ll see what they do at No. 8, but there are lots of reasons for optimism to help support Okongwu and prevent the Hawks from finding themselves in a situation inside as they did against New York this postseason.
The Pistons have to pay Duren this summer. Tobias Harris is an unrestricted free agent. They’ve got fine rotation bigs Isaiah Stewart and Paul Reed under contract for next season, but Detroit, like Atlanta, is in a position where finding the right amount of shooting and defense to advance further in the postseason is quite complicated. Thompson and Duren are both tremendous players, but can they both be in Detroit’s best five-man lineups that advance to the NBA Finals? Do they prioritize selling high on one of those two guys to find Cunningham a veteran All-Star or borderline All-Star as the Robin to his Batman? What we know is the Pistons are a great team now with a top-10 player, well, now. Do they roll the dice with Thompson and Duren developing more offensively to make it all work with Cunningham and company?
I wonder if the same angst is shared by the Atlanta front office when it comes to Kuminga and Risacher, particularly due to the unique kind of all-around awesome player that Daniels is. The Great Barrier Thief is, admittedly, my favorite player on this team and an absolute delight to watch with the ball and without it. He is a winning player in so many ways, as evidenced by his +10.8 rating per 100 possessions, behind only McCollum at 10.9. (It should be noted that McCollum did play around 1,400 fewer minutes with the team than Daniels did last season after being acquired by the team in the Trae Young trade with the Washington Wizards.) He is a critical core piece, and while his three-point shooting improved a bit down the stretch – he shot 3-of-7 from deep in the final two games against the Knicks – you can’t bet on a major leap forward in the long-distance shooting department for a player like Daniels with just how bad it was over a huge sample size this season. You live with that, though, because he is an excellent driver, finisher, defender, and passer. It just means that Kuminga and Risacher have to be reliable threats from deep. More is on everyone else’s plate offensively, particularly Risacher and Kuminga. It means Risacher has to give you more, or it means Kuminga has to give you more, particularly in the postseason when things slow down, and the Hawks can’t crush teams in transition nearly as often.
It would not be a surprise for Risacher and Holland II to play in the NBA for many years to come, but most of those years may not be with the team that drafted them. If the Hawks decline Kuminga’s team option, but then elect to re-sign him to a long-term extension, that probably does not bode well for Risacher’s long-term future in Atlanta. Or maybe they find a taker for Kispert’s contract this summer, and the team kicks the can down the road on having to decide between Kuminga and Risacher. If the Pistons envision Thompson and Duren as part of their long-term core with Cunningham, how does Holland II still fit into those plans after shooting under 25 percent from deep in his first two seasons in Detroit?
The Hawks and the Pistons are two teams in the East trying to become what the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks have been the last two seasons. Two teams that have the right combination of offense and defense to be considered bona fide contenders. To get there, they will have to make tougher, faster decisions on players like Holland II and Risacher. The Wizards can wait on Alex Sarr. The Utah Jazz can wait on Ace Bailey. The Hawks and Pistons can’t wait for Risacher and Holland II.
With Daniels and Thompson, does that cancel out Risacher and Holland II? Do they have to move them now rather than risk another season where they aren’t mainstays in the rotation on two teams trying to compete at the top of the East? What the Pistons and Hawks resolve to do with both former lottery picks will be fascinating nonetheless. The teams have done so many things right, particularly on the margins, of late, and have a strong foundation. Now, though, to get to that next level, it’s almost a game of Jenga, where one bad decision here on one of these guys could bring the whole thing tumbling down.