Bill Wennington, Luc Longley, And Will Perdue Were Once Called "Bang Gang," T-Shirt Alleges

Could we talk about this t-shirt for a moment? Because it is so very wrong.

I don't mean the possibly unwitting double entendre. I don't mean the fact that someone somewhere saw fit to put not just Bill Wennington on a t-shirt, not just Luc Longley, not just Will Perdue — but all three of them. And I don't even mean the profoundly sad image I have in my head of a kid strolling with his mom through a Kohl's in Des Plaines, seeing this shirt, and saying: "I want that one, mom. The one with Bill Wennington, Luc Longley, and Will Perdue."

No, what's so wrong about this shirt is that no one called them the Bang Gang. And with good reason! Bill Wennington didn't bang. Luc Longley certainly didn't bang. Will Perdue tried to bang once, and he wound up running into Tony Massenburg's elbow. This t-shirt must've been made sometime during the 1994-95 season. I figure I watched 80 percent of Bulls games that year. I read the Chicago papers. Nobody, I assure you, called them the Bang Gang. Not Red Kerr, not Tom Dore, not Norm Van Lier, not Bernie Lincicome, not Steve Rosenbloom, not even Sam Smith, in those spare moments when he wasn't daydreaming about trading Dickey Simpkins for the starting lineup of the Sonics.

You can't just stick a nickname like that on a t-shirt and act like it's in the common parlance. A nickname like that has to be earned, whether through tireless work in the paint or through actual polyamory. I know for a fact that Bill Wennington, Luc Longley, and Will Perdue never engaged in the former, and we should all hope to God they never indulged in the latter.

Awesome Chicago Bulls Vintage "Bang Gang" Shirt [eBay, via Ball Don't Lie]

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