DAKAR, Senegal -The tallest player in the NBA is wearing a snakeskin blazer that J.C. Penney made him specially for the draft.
Normal clothes don’t fit Tacko Fall, who stands 7-foot-7, so this jacket is also his homecoming attire. After signing last week with the Boston Celtics, the 23-year-old Senegal native is back in Africa’s westernmost city for the first time in seven years.
He cannot believe how much has changed – his hometown and his life. He used to own one pair of sandals in the seaside capital. He stitched them together when they broke.
Fall landed this week in a polished new airport, drove through seemingly endless construction and now stands in Dakar’s $34 million, just-opened Museum of Black Civilizations.