It wasn’t that long ago that being tall was considered one of the main traits to be
a good basketball player.
Of course, you needed other skills as well, but being tall pretty much guaranteed you
some type of role on a team.
Bill Russell at 6 foot 10 was one of the tallest guys on the court night in and night out back
in the 1960s, and just 20 years later
Larry Bird at 6 foot 9 was playing Small Forward.
Fast forward it to nowadays
and you have a 6 foot 11 Ben Simmons playing point guard.
So everyone is tall now.
And skilled.
Now it’s still an asset to be tall, especially if you’re the center of your team because
most likely you’ll be guarding and attacking 7 footers constantly, but just being tall
is not good enough anymore.
Times are changing and so is a place in the modern NBA for really really tall guys.
In the 80s - 7 foot 4 Mark Eaton, had a really good career.
He’s one of the best blockers in NBA history.
So did another 7 foot 4 Ralph Sampson.
For a while, he was a part of a twin tower duo in Houston.
The two tallest players ever to play in the NBA - Gheorghe Muresan and Manute Bol - both
listed at 7 foot 7 at some point in their respective careers were towering over anyone
on their or opponents team.
Especially Manute Bol who played alongside the shortest player in NBA History Mugsy Bogues
who was 5 foot 3.
Muresan played 6 seasons in the NBA and averaged 9.8 points and 6.4 rebounds for his career.
He played in the 90s and pretty much had just 3 good seasons out of 6.
Injuries derailed his career.
And that’s the thing with really tall players.
They can’t just play your normal 30, 35+ minutes per night and for a long time.
Ultimately he was just another player.
He did win the NBA Most Improved Player award and was leading the league in the field goal
percentage 2 times, but overall, besides his towering height, he wasn’t anything special.
Manute Bol on the other hand had a much more lengthy career.
His career spanned more than 600 games.
He wasn’t known for anything offensively, but he did lead the league 2 times in blocks,
made the NBA All-Defensive second team, and still holds the second-highest block per game
average in NBA History.
Shawn Bradley for the 2nd overall pick had a quite disappointing career.
He made the NBA All-Rookie second team, led the NBA in blocks once, but overall was flirting
with a bust status for his whole career.
In the late 90s early 2000s - 2 Lithuanians Arvydas Sabonis and Zydrunas Ilgauskas - both
had an impact on the NBA and their teams, but none of them really evolved into big superstars.
To be fair though Sabonis was already 31 when he made it to the NBA.
And still was good.
Ilgauskas is sort of a Cleveland Cavalier legend so you can count these 2 careers as
successes.
And now you have Porzingis at 7 foot 3 who’s a bonafide all-star talent.
Boban Marjanovič has his role set with his team as well.
But for every success story, there are two examples that didn’t really make it.
There’s your Hasheem Thabeet type of player who just wasn’t skilled enough from the
beginning and never evolved.
Tibor Pleiß who played just 12 games in the league.
Sim Bhullar who played just 3 games.
And Slavko Vraneš who played just 1 game in the league in 2004 and never returned.
So in recent years, we’ve welcomed another SUPER tall player in the NBA - Tacko Fall.
Unfortunately, currently, it seems like he will be one of those players whose career
just didn’t pan out.
At 7 foot 6 and 311 pounds, he is a monster, or at least he could be a monster center for
any team.
So far though, in 3 NBA seasons, he’s played in only 37 games and in 6.2 minutes averages
2.2 points and 2.4 rebounds.
Coming out of college he had many flaws.
He obviously had height which you can’t teach, so someone will take a chance on him,
just because of his height, but otherwise - he didn’t have the necessary stamina,
shooting skills, pretty much no offensive game.
In the modern NBA where centers shoot the 3 just as good as most guards you just have
to be quick and able to shoot the 3 yourself.
Otherwise you have limited usability.
And to even have that limited usability you need to have stamina.
It seems like Tacko doesn’t have it.
He’s quite slow and uncoordinated.
He can’t really hit the jumper outside the paint.
Most centers in today's NBA are quite agile, which means that even his best asset which
is guarding the paint and blocking shots - is pretty useless since he can’t really catch
up with other players.
The size difference will play a role here and there but most players like that will
have a negative net rating.
Also, he started his career with Boston.
A team that had, or still has quite high expectations.
Tacko Fall is a unique player.
He needs the time to develop and the Celtics needed to do that.
He should’ve been developing in the G-League.
Instead, he was sitting on Boston’s bench racking up DNP’s.
He had some chances, but he squandered those, like missing assignments on defense or a gimme
layup.
So after 2 years of that, the Celtics decided that this project is not for them.
So Cleveland took a chance.
That lasted all of 11 games in which he posted averages of 1.1 points and 1.5 rebounds in
5.4 minutes of action.
Now, he’s in G-League, playing for the Cleveland Charge.
He’s playing a lot of minutes, which is good for his development.
He’s also rebounding and blocking shots which are also expected.
Offensively though, he’s averaging just 8 points.
He’s shooting 40% from the free-throw line and is attempting just 1 free throw per game.
So as far as the outlook for the NBA?
It doesn’t look good.
Additionally, take into account that he is already 26 years old.
I know it’s not much, even for an NBA player, but he’s a really big guy, a really tall
guy, and most tall guys start to have some nagging injuries here and there around 30
or so.
So this might just be his prime and if he can’t make it to the league now there’s
practically no chance he’ll ever do that.
And the teams know that as well.
As sad as it sounds, he might have like 3-4 years of good basketball health left in him.
Would you risk your teams' success, take minutes from players who also have potential, just
to see if this project works out?
And even if it does, it’s safe to assume that he won’t be your starting 35 minute
center for a season.
So what are you really wasting your time on?
On a possible role player at best?
Being tall is not good enough anymore.
You need to have a bunch of skills to go with that and I’m afraid that Tacko Fall just
doesn’t have those.
But what do you think guys?
Will Tacko Fall make it back to the NBA?
Can he become a rotational player in the league and if so, for how long?
Please leave a comment down below.
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Thanks for watching.
This was Purple Prince, and I’m out