The Atlanta Hawks were lucky enough to secure the rights to the first overall pick in the 2024 NBA draft. Unfortunately, that is where their luck ran out as this year's draft features the rare class without any players who have any obvious superstar potential.

Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr are two likely candidates to be selected first overall. This year, however, there is no consensus and there aren’t any can’t-miss prospects. There’s no Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green, Paolo Banchero, Zion Williamson, Ja Morant or Kyrie Irving.

That means there are fewer obvious franchise-altering talents for the Hawks to pick from, and there is also less demand for the pick that the Hawks could leverage to trade out and acquire future assets.

With Atlanta's front office ironically in an enviable yet challenging position, here are four players that the Hawks should avoid drafting this year.

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Zaccharie Risacher

Risacher is not a bad player by any means. In fact, Risacher’s combination of size, shooting and defense gives him arguably the highest floor in the class as a valuable role player in the worst-case scenario.

The problem with the French forward is that he doesn’t have a clear path to becoming a superstar. In order to reach his full potential, Risacher will have to significantly improve his self-creation ability. That would give him superstar-level potential, but he hasn’t done much to this point to demonstrate that has the potential to become a self-creator.

Again, this isn’t necessarily a problem and it’s certainly not an indictment on Risacher as a player. Some guys just aren’t self-creators, and that’s okay. The problem is Risacher’s lack of creation and the inability to project him as a future star makes it extremely difficult to justify drafting him with the first overall selection.

This is the point in the draft where the teams are looking for players who can change the trajectory of their franchise. Risacher might develop into that player one day, but he doesn’t have a clear path to get there.

Ron Holland

Holland is a ridiculously explosive athlete and a dynamic driver who struggles with the most important swing skill in today’s NBA: three-point shooting.

Holland has a non-stop motor and that means at worst he’ll be a useful rotational piece as a pesky wing defender, who will make the right play, force turnovers, turn defense into offense by creating fast break opportunities, and score easy buckets in transition and by attacking mismatches.

Holland is also a physical player who can get to the rim at will and impose his will on the defense. Unfortunately for Holland, while those skills are certainly valued in today’s NBA, they don’t mean much for a wing who can’t shoot. Unless your name is Giannis Antetokounmpo, it’s nearly impossible to find consistent, efficient success on the offensive end if opponents don’t respect your shooting ability.

Holland will have to overcome that challenge in order to be a star, and that’s far from a guarantee. Perhaps not a great pick for the Hawks.

Alex Sarr

Sarr is an intriguing prospect because of his two-way potential. At his best, he’ll likely be an elite presence on both ends who can make life difficult for offensive players at the rim, gobble up rebounds, turn defense into offense by initiating the fast break, take advantage of mismatches for easy buckets at the rim and stretch the court from the power forward or center position by reliably hitting shots from beyond the arc.

In an absolutely perfect world, he could even become a sort of poor man’s Victor Wembanyama. Realistically, he’ll max out around the level of Jaren Jackson Jr. or the good version of Josh Smith.

This follows a similar theme to the players mentioned above in that the outcome of reaching Jackson Jr.’s caliber is by no means a bad scenario. However, teams typically look for a little bit more when they’re taking somebody with the first overall pick.

To put it a different way, JJJ is a very good player, but Ja Morant is the engine that makes the Grizzlies go. With the first overall pick, your team should be looking for their Morant as opposed to their complementary sidekick.

It’s possible that Sarr will develop skills he hasn’t already shown and become a more transcendent player. The best projection for him to develop would be if he follows a path similar to Sixers’ star Joel Embiid. This path would involve Sarr bulking up and making a concerted effort to become more aggressive, while also dedicating himself to improving his outside shot.

Zach Edey

Due to the severe lack of game-changing prospects at the top of the draft board, the Hawks could see the wisdom in trading down out of the first pick, passing up on all of the aforementioned players and instead opting to stockpile assets for the future.

Unless they trade all the way out of the first round, though, Zach Edey is a player that the Hawks should avoid.

If this were the year 2000 or even 2010, Edey would have a case as one of the top players in the class. Unfortunately for Edey, however, his player archetype has fallen out of favor throughout the Association in the past decade.

Anybody thinking about drafting Edey in the first round should look to Jahlil Okafor as a cautionary tale. Slow, immobile players who specialize in dribbling the air out of the ball in the post while slowly backing their defender down for a layup or dunk simply aren’t valuable anymore because that playstyle doesn’t work in today’s NBA.

Those players will be exposed, particularly on defense. They’ll be a major liability because opponents will scheme to draw them out into open space where opposing players can score at will.

Edey isn’t necessarily a bad player, he was just born 20 years too late.