I have to agree with my man Trey over at Ball Don’t Lie — oh, and if you aren’t reading him over at Fourth-Place Medal right now, you are missing out — this is pretty much my new favorite shirt of all-time:

Yes, do not attempt to adjust the color on your monitor, that is a caricature tee featuring Bill Wennington, Luc Longley and Will Perdue, and they are called the “BANG GANG.”

I was not aware of this nickname, were you? I think it was invented for the sole purposes of this t-shirt, and I am totally cool with that.

I do, however, remember random shirts like this featuring the Bulls’ lesser talents from the 90’s being sold at Kohl’s during my childhood; a dynamic duo shirt of Steve Kerr and Randy Brown is coming to mind right now.

Bottom line: I want this t-shirt. Now. But it’s going for $41.00 currently, and will probably skyrocket into the millions. Sigh.

As we often don’t consciously think about, the typical athlete has a somewhat long life ahead of them after they call it quits. NBA players do not retire at 63 with full benefits; they are forced out of the game in their 30s after their skills have declined.

So, they find other things to do.

Like Bulls role player Will Perdue. He was part of their first three-peat in the early 90s. He works for ESPN now. But, he’s also taken to comparing NASCAR drivers to Michael Jordan as a “playoff advisor” for Hendricks Motorsports.

Via Sports Illustrated:

Perdue built his relationship from a crew member’s point of view, emphasizing that in his mind Gordon plays the role of Michael Jordan and Steve Letarte is Phil Jackson. The same goes with his involvement on the 48 team with Jimmie Johnson as Jordan and Chad Knaus as Jackson.

[ ... ]

The basketball analogies go even further from Perdue. He has noticed that some of Johnson’s competition in NASCAR has the same look in their eyes that he saw from other teams when he was playing with Jordan and the Bulls. It’s a look of fear and self-doubt before the contest even begins.

“It wasn’t that other teams didn’t have an answer, but they knew they had to play their best game just to have a chance at beating the Bulls,” Perdue said. “These teams in NASCAR know that just to have a chance, they have to have the best pit stops, tire combinations and everything has to go right.”

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My pog set was probably the dumbest toy I ever owned. Which might also mean it was the most awesome.

I distinctly remember getting excited about making my own slammer by placing a tear-drop ying-yang sticker on a circular piece of red plastic. I had no clue what a ying-yang was and neither did any of my friends, all we knew was it looked really cool.

Pogs weren’t so much about the actual game — throw the slammer down and watch all the pogs flip over! Sweet! — as it was about style. It was all about who had the coolest pogs with the coolest designs, people or sayings on them. Therefore, sometime during Michael Jordan’s first retirement — I’m going with the 1994-95 season — I hit absolute paydirt at a Bulls game giveaway:

Yeah, that’s Will Perdue. I know you’re jealous. I found these in a box last night and it’s obvious I never popped these pogs out because I was sure they were going to be worth a lot of money someday.

So yeah: bidding starts at $30,000.

After the jump, a photo of the back of these pogs complete with signatures from the players.

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