Why Did Tacko Fall?

I’m not making a Tacko Fall MVP case here, I’m just asking the question: why did one of the five tallest players in NBA history go undrafted? 

He played four years at UCF and the Boston Celtics snatched him up in free agency after the 2019 draft. He made their roster and posted a four-point, three-rebound game in his debut. Now, that line isn’t enough to make 29 NBA general managers kick themselves quite yet, but, why such a high-profile, smart, historically-tall center wasn’t worth a second-round flier to any NBA team confounds me. 

Tacko Fall, in shoes, is 7 feet 7 inches tall. That’s the tallest in the NBA by four inches. He posted a 26.5-inch vertical leap at the combine.

According to NBA.com, in the past 10 NBA Draft combines, only four people have posted lower vertical jumps: Solomon Alabi (26), Dedric Lawson (26), Dakari Johnson (25) and Nikola Vucevic (25). Granted, Vucevic has a deadly three-point game for a seven-footer (36 percent last year) but he made last year’s NBA All-Star Game and averaged 21 points and 12 rebounds per game, proving that even posting the lowest vertical leap in the last 10 years doesn’t preclude a player from NBA production.

According to scouting combine data from NBA.com, Tacko posted the second-slowest three-quarters court sprint (3.78 seconds) since they began posting data in 2000. 

Sure, Tacko is slow compared to most NBA players, but Boban Marjanovic posted a 4.48 three-quarters court sprint in 2009, per NBADraft.net. 

Not trying to pick on Boban here, we love Boban, my point is that even with an unbelievably slow sprint time, Boban was able to become literally the most efficient player in NBA history. 

Tacko’s intelligence is also well-documented. He finished high school with a 4.0 GPA, killed the SAT and studied computer science in his four years at UCF. 

Thomas Welsh, a 7-foot center from UCLA was drafted in 2018. He has already bounced around among the Denver Nuggets, the Timberwolves’ G-League team, the Wizards’ G-League team and now the Hornets’. He’s played 36 NBA minutes and tallied 18 points and 4 rebounds. If Thomas Welsh was worthy of a second-round pick, why wasn’t Elhadji Serigne Tacko Diop Fall?

Fan hype, ticket and merchandise sales and social media engagement are also valuable commodities in today’s professional sports industry, and Tacko’s visage generates all of those. 

Tacko Fall was worthy of at least a second-round pick and I’m excited to see him show the league why.