NBA veteran Tacko Fall has just started training Jiu-Jitsu and at 7’7” and over 300 lbs, he’s going to be a formidable opponent for anyone. Anyone making it to the highest level in Basketball has to be an incredible athlete and due to the nature of the sport, they’re almost all going to have incredibly rare genetic advantages too. Although Basketball doesn’t necessarily help someone learn BJJ like many other sports would, that baseline athletic ability and the knowledge of how to move at speed is very valuable. Fall has both of those advantages too, as he has spent over a decade training and competing in the sport.
Fall was one of the most highly-scouted centers in the United States during his high school career, largely due to his incredible height and reach. He went on to play for the University of Central Florida during his college career and although he went undrafted initially, he was then signed to the Boston Celtics. Fall spent the first two seasons of his professional career there before signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers for his final season in the NBA. He has continued to play basketball professionally since then though, representing both the Nanjing Monkey Kings in the Chinese Basketball Association and the New Zealand Breakers in the Australian National Basketball League.
Fall isn’t the first veteran Basketball player to discover Jiu-Jitsu either, as Igor Rakocevic is a long-time grappler and BJJ black belt. Fall is much earlier on in his Jiu-Jitsu journey of course, and he’s started training under Adam Redzovic at Downtown Jiu-Jitsu Club in Chicago. It’ll be interesting to see if more elite athletes from Basketball make the transition into Jiu-Jitsu as the sport grows more popular and gets more mainstream exposure. If they do, and they start actually competing as well, the ultra-heavyweight division of local tournaments all around the US about to get a whole lot harder.
Downtown Jiu-Jitsu Club Chicago shared the news that Tacko Fall had started training BJJ with them in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
