These two professional basketball players can look up to each other, literally. Boston Celtics rookies Tacko Fall and Carsen Edwards were going about their normal business at the 2019 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas when a picture emphasizing their height differential started making the media rounds.
Fall, a 7-foot-6 center who went undrafted out of Central Florida, can be seen racing down the court and trailing Edwards on a routine play. Normally, this picture would be glossed over and ignored. However, the height discrepancy between Fall and the 6-foot-1 Edwards is mind-numbing. It looks Photoshopped as many fans pointed out. Edwards, a shooting guard out of Purdue, was selected in the second round by the Philadelphia 76ers and then traded to Boston.
Fall and Edwards are starring for the Celtics in summer league games and playing well. Fall is averaging 12 points, eight rebounds and four blocks in 18 minutes per game. Meanwhile, Edwards is scoring 18 points per game while shooting 52.1 percent from the field and 48.4 percent from beyond the arc. They both appear to be great value picks who can contribute to the team immediately. For now, everyone remains fixated on the viral photos of the Celtics’ new big man.
There is a growing narrative, wrapped in a shroud of mystery, in the NBA revolving around literally larger-than-life centers, guys like Fall and Boban Marjanovic and Travon Pearson. While the league has become almost entirely guard-oriented in recent years, 7-footers are fighting to take the game back. According to Sports Illustrated, an American male 7-footer between the ages of 20 and 40 has a 17 percent chance of playing in the NBA.
“Basically, I come from other planet,” Marjanovic told Bleacher Report’s David Gardner. “Like Superman, from Krypton. I don’t show my power because I want to play basketball. I will” — and here he makes a whistling flying noise — “fly off when I retire.”
Fall, of course, is one of the tallest humans in the world and has gone on record saying he wants to be an “ambassador for the sport” in Africa. Surprisingly, Fall’s parents are not absurdly tall and his massive height is still a mystery as the only other tall person in the family is his uncle. Yahoo Sports detailed Tacko’s parents’ ordinary height. According to People, Fall is a whole foot and a half taller than his father and more than a foot and a half taller than his mother. The towering center admitted his height not only helps him on the basketball court but for simple things like getting cereal at the grocery store.
“When I walk in the grocery store, I can see on top of all the shelves and I can reach over anything that I want to,” he explained to People.
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