Boston Celtics: Tacko Fall has quite the tall task

The Boston Celtics have 14 guaranteed deals with one roster spot remaining, can Tacko Fall be the 15th man?

I have a question for you, Boston Celtics fans.

When was the last time an undrafted player made a Boston Celtics roster?

Ok, so there’s been Daniel Theis, Brad Wanamaker, Vincent Poirier’s contract is guaranteed, etc., and so forth.

But when was the last time an undrafted player made a Celtics roster when, in addition to having gone undrafted, said player hadn’t played professionally overseas at all, either?

Don’t feel badly, Boston Celtics fans. I couldn’t think of the last instance of this having happened, either.

Not in recent memory, nor at any time when the NBA landscape resembled what it does today, has a player overcome such odds as to accomplish this feat.

Let that sink in, for a second. It has not happened.

As you might expect, there’s a very reasonable explanation as to why this is the case.

If a young player hasn’t shown enough promise to warrant being drafted, he almost always will have to spend a few years developing his game overseas before a NBA team is willing to consider letting him find a nice spot at the far reaches of its bench.

That’s the way it typically plays out, anyway.

These are the daunting odds fan favorite Tacko Fall faces over these next few months in his bid to secure the Boston Celtics’ final roster spot.

Fall didn’t begin playing basketball until his late teenage years. Instead, his focus had been soccer.

Can you believe that, Celtics fans? Tacko Fall, the soccer player? I’m sure having a hard time with that one…

Eventually, Fall, or someone else in his life, realized his immense size was being wasted on the soccer field and would find a happier home on the hardwood.

So around the time a young person begins deciding which college he or she will attend and/or planning what his or her career might involve, Fall had just begun to think about playing a little bit of hoops.

This would begin an almost unheard of path for someone to take who goes on to have legitimate NBA aspirations.

There is presently such a heightened awareness surrounding youth basketball that some high-school aged players achieve more name recognition than even very accomplished NBA players. A LaMelo Ball-Nikola Vucevic comparison comes to mind as an example.

The ubiquity of social media coupled with an ever-increasing passion for all things basketball has all but ensured early exposure for talented youngsters.

Then, of course, there are the young basketball players who, even if not terribly talented, are terribly tall.

Height is the premier, “God-given skill” that is inextricably linked to basketball.

So long as a very tall kid can hold onto the ball for more than, say, five seconds or so, many an individual will gaze up at him and justifiably wonder about his NBA potential.

How did Fall go overlooked in this climate of endless exposure and interest?

Well, you see, he was effectively hiding. And in a really good hiding spot. Perhaps the best even.

Senegal. And away from any basketball courts.

Because of this, Fall has unfortunately missed out on many years of what could have included valuable time spent in the gym, working on his game.

So when it comes to the sport he would now like to make a career out of, while being a head above, Fall finds himself a step or two behind.

Many have said that because he is still in the early stages of his development, that Fall has “more room to grow” than other players in his position. The suggestion is that his inexperience may eventually prove advantageous for him, as he might posses more of an untapped potential than his peers.

However, it must be acknowledged that this theory doesn’t hold up in consideration of how Fall’s college career panned out.

Over the course of four seasons at UCF, he showed little to no improvement, regression even.

Fall’s best college season was not his senior year, as you would expect, but instead his sophomore year, when he averaged 10.9 PPG, 9.5 RPG, and 2.6 BPG. He logged 26.3 minutes per contest that year.

Perhaps most concerning of all is that Fall’s RPG dropped to 7.7 by his senior season, despite averaging roughly the same amount of time spent on the court as during his sophomore season.

If this was going to be a player who because of his late start had more room to grow, he certainly hadn’t shown any signs of this throughout his college career.

Thus, it’s understandable that after it was announced that Fall would be joining the Boston Celtics as a member of its summer league roster, more than one local sports expert was quick to dampen fans’ expectations.

While fans were immediately enamored with him because of his impressive stature and unusual name, Fall simply hadn’t shown the on-court growth and promise needed to warrant the excitement.

This would all quickly change over the course of just a few short weeks.

Early on in the Celtics training sessions held in preparation for summer league action, there were rumblings coming out of camp that suggested maybe, just maybe, fans were right to be excited about Fall.

Boston Celtics summer league coach, Scott Morrision, told reporters that Fall had shown himself to be more “mobile” than expected, had displayed some “toughness,” and that he and the rest of the coaches were “impressed” based on the early returns.

A cautious optimism about Fall’s potential was beginning to grow.

Then, with the start of the Las Vegas summer league, all hell broke loose.

The games were being played, Fall was actually playing in them, and on top of it all, he was playing well — well beyond anyone’s wildest expectations for him.

Tacko-mania had officially commenced.

Fans at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas cheered in mass for Fall to be inserted into games, and when he was taken out, quickly reinserted; some even adorned body-length sized taco inspired costumes to show their support; and each of the Celtics’ summer league games became a near must see TV event.

At this point, even those in the media began to, ahem, fall, for Tacko. (Sorry. Sometimes you really can’t help it.)

Serious journalists such as Chris Forsberg began expressing their support for and belief in Fall on popular local sports television shows like Early Edition and Boston Sports Tonight.

Lesser known, non-traditional sports media personality Scout’s Honor made Tim Duncan comparisons.

Fall played so well during the summer league that in retrospect it seems the only reason he wasn’t given more opportunities there was because the Boston Celtics were futilely attempting to keep quiet what had already become a very poorly held secret…

Fall was good.

Over the course of summer league action, Fall averaged 7.2 PPG, 4.0 RPG, and 1.4 BPG, while only receiving 12.6 minutes of floor time per contest.

(The per 36 MPG projections are something like 20,10, and four, in case you were wondering and didn’t feel like thinking. I can sympathize.)

That’s not bad for an undrafted player who hadn’t played a lick of basketball until he had nearly reached legal adulthood.

And now, according to Celtics general manager Danny Ainge, Fall finds himself in the mix to earn Boston’s final roster spot for the 2019-2020 NBA season.

This all represents a whirlwind ascendancy for a young man who not long ago was a soccer player first, and a basketball player… well, he hadn’t even begun playing basketball then.

Can Tacko Fall continue his meteoric rise?

Or will he fail to make this Boston Celtics roster, jeopardizing his future with the team…?

I’d love to read in the comments section all about where you think the Tacko train is ultimately headed.

Thanks for reading.