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.
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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."
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