Tacko Fall sizing up his opportunity with the Celtics

https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/celtics/tacko-fall-sizing-his-opportunity-celtics



Tacko Fall sizing up his opportunity with the Celtics




By A. Sherrod Blakely
July 02, 2019 9:29 AM




BOSTON -- As Tacko Fall made his way towards the media scrum awaiting his first comments as a Boston Celtic, his 6-foot-7 teammate Grant Williams walked towards him, stopped, gave him an ear-to-ear grin followed by a high-five that Williams exaggerated being higher than it actually was.

But when it comes to the 7-foot-6 Fall, his length is very real.

Signed to an Exhibit 10 contract, Tacko Fall stands out like no other player on this Celtics roster because of his ridiculous height in a league that’s filled with players with near-the-ceiling height to begin with.

“He’s pretty tall; my first impression,” quipped Celtics assistant coach Scott Morrison when asked about Fall. “You have to be careful walking along the baseline because if he puts his hands on his hips, you could catch an elbow to the eye.”


With his length and frame, conventional wisdom tells you that he’s more of a prodding big man.

And then you see him out-run other bigs down court for easy scores.

“A lot of people haven’t had the opportunity to see me up close, just on TV here and there,” Fall said. “It’s a different experience live with me running up and down. I’ve been working on my body, my conditioning. It’s a lot of things I’ve done in the offseason to help me improve.”

But even by adding new elements to his bag of basketball tricks, the narrative surrounding Fall always comes back to his height, which makes him one of the tallest humans on the planet.

And for a Celtics team that’s painfully thin in the frontcourt, Fall could not have fallen (pun totally intended on that one) into a better situation.

Recently acquired Enes Kanter and second-year center Robert Williams III are the Celtics’ only true centers. Boston will likely re-sign restricted free agent  big man Daniel Theis. The Celtics also have Guerschon Yabusele who can play some center as well.

It’s far too soon to say what kind of impact Fall will have in summer league.

But with his height, length and knack for knocking shots a few rows into the stands (he averaged 2.6 blocks per game as a senior at Central Florida), Fall will have plenty of opportunities to establish himself with the Celtics summer league team, which begins play on Saturday as part of the Las Vegas Summer League. (Note: all Celtics summer league games can be seen on NBC Sports Boston.)

But the plan coming into this season wasn’t necessarily for Fall to wind up with the Celtics from Day One.

A more likely starting point for Fall would be to join Boston’s G-League affiliate, the Maine Red Claws.  

Whether it’s the G-League affiliate or the Celtics, it doesn’t matter to Fall.

He’s just happy that he’s getting a shot at his dream of professional basketball with a team like the Celtics that’s affording him the one thing he has always wanted: an opportunity to prove his worth.

“Somewhere I can go and fit in right away; somewhere where I know they really want me,” said Fall in describing why he signed with the Celtics.  “I feel like I have all that here in Boston.”



bob
MY NOTE:  I'm not getting my hopes up with this kid.  If he was any good he would have been in the NBA draft 3 years ago, but there has never been a bigger opportunity to prove your doubters wrong.

.

Though he hasn’t played basketball long to this point. Regardless, I wouldn’t expect him to get more than a 2-way contract.

If he can overcome his FT’s can be a real asset.

Boston has a truly uncanny knack for giving the right guys the right chances and opportunities to prove themselves. This is usually done at a huge discount and probably told them upfront followed by, "You knock this out of the park, we'll get you the money you deserve." Or something like that.

db

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I cannot wait to see him play.  

I wish him the best of luck as well as the other fellas that wear the green and are just starting out.

Some interesting insight into who Tacko is.





bob


.

Math and geometry whiz? That really helps with rebounding. I absolutely love this guy and want Danny to sign him.

p.s. rebounding and shot blocking 100% translate into the NBA from college play.

I don't know about Fall having a future in Boston or the NBA, but New England Taco Bell franchises are going to be rooting for him to become a Celtic.

Cs still have 1.1m cap space to sign Fall or Waters or someone else for the 15th spot to a multi year contract even after Poirier getting well above the min and Edwards signing his deal. Yabusele last year was stretched.

After chasing some video of Fall in his last year of college ball and comparing it to what he showed in the summer games, I believe that the Fall we saw in Las Vegas will not be the same guy we saw there when pre season arrives in late September.

He has made great strides since college in many parts of his game since last March, and is likely to make many more gains in the next two plus months and then even more and more progress for the next couple of years.

Sure, we would all want him to be 20 years old and not 23 and we would want him to have had better coaching and have many more years of basketball experience. But, he cannot go backwards so he is an "older" type of rookie at this time. His career may be somewhat shorter as a result of where he currently is, but who knows what quality his career will be or how long he plays.

On a team that is completely full of smaller guys and always looking for a center, this guy is worth signing to the 15th roster spot at this time. The last roster spot is always a spot for "project" type players on every team so why not utilize our 15th spot for a "true" center project?

Is he a top level player with no weaknesses and on his way to the Hall of Fame? Of course not, but I look at Fall as already better than Yabusele would have been on the Cs roster, and that is only the beginning of what he might do. He will do much, much better and I for one will not be happy seeing him in any other NBA uniform if the Cs do not sign him.

What do you think about Waters getting the 15th spot and Fall getting a two way?

After watching Waters and Edwards I am ready to get rid of Wanamaker.

I believe that I would rather see Fall get the 15th spot over Waters because Fall is a center and Waters is a guard on a team that is already full of guards. Also, every other team has now seen Fall's improvements, and someone will sign him to a roster spot if the Cs only offer him a two way deal.

A two way deal means that the player is protected from poaching by another team.

A straight up G League player can be poached.

Big difference.

I would still rather have Fall on the roster than Waters. That way he can play as many G league or NBA games as needed and wanted. Every single game he could get an NBA game play drawn up for him that no one could stop, opening up options for others.

gyso,

My point was that if Fall gets only offered a two way deal by Boston someone else may offer him a full roster space deal.  No one could blame Fall for not accepting a full roster space deal if offered by some other team ahead of a two way contract by Boston.

But, you are 100% correct that if he signs a two way deal with the Cs, he is their property and cannot be just swept away by another team.

Clyde,

Now I get what you are saying.  Before Fall signs the two-way contract, another team can contact his agent and offer him a real NBA contract.

Maybe Fall is the player that gets the 15th roster spot.  If the coaches see enough improvement in Fall's game since his last college season, maybe he gets the 4 year deal.  It may take most of that time to advance his skillset enough to be a rotational player.

It makes more sense to add a big player to this small-ish team than to add another even smaller player to the mix.

gyso

Unless Danny wants Waters at the 5 spot.

worcester wrote:Unless Danny wants Waters at the 5 spot.

Ding, ding, ding . . . We have a winner!!!

I think if it comes down to Waters vs Fall for spot #15, Waters has a better chance to eventually become a regular contributor and earn minutes. I would give the roster spot to Waters and take a chance on retaining Fall in another way; 2-way of otherwise. I don't think there will be a lot of demand for Fall, but there might be some for Waters.

I want to see more bigs on the roster, but I wouldn't go all out to retain rights to Fall. I don't think he'll ever have the skills to contribute more than spot minutes in specialized situations. Hard to carry that type of player.

Of course, there are several ways to go. Its probably safe to cut Wanamaker loose, and open up another spot that way. Lots of rookies this year, but that's going to be OK.

Trade Wanamaker then

Waters and Strus have signed 2-way contacts

jrleftfoot wrote:Waters and Strus have signed 2-way contacts

Forgot about that.

NYCelt wrote:

jrleftfoot wrote:Waters and Strus have signed 2-way contacts

Forgot about that.

Either could be converted to regular contracts or signed to regular contracts just as Fall can be converted to a 2way or signed to regular contract

KyleCleric wrote:

NYCelt wrote:

jrleftfoot wrote:Waters and Strus have signed 2-way contacts

Forgot about that.

Either could be converted to regular contracts or signed to regular contracts just as Fall can be converted to a 2way or signed to regular contract

Perhaps. But I can't see them wanting to commit anything much to Fall. Might be worth doing nothing. If there are no other takers, maybe he could end up in Maine.