With Sam Cassell's musty corpse decomposing at the end of the Boston Celtics' bench, other NBA players have tried -- and failed, pretty miserably -- to carry on Sam-I-Am's tradition of performing The Big Balls Dance after hitting a clutch shot. Most notably, Kobe Bryant and Andre Iguodala (and Mamba did it twice). In all three cases, the opposing team came back and hit a clutchier shot to win the game. Busted.

Discussion of these hilarious failures uncovered what was, to me, a rather startling fact: Cassell may have pioneered use of The Big Balls Dance in the NBA, but he didn't invent it. No, indeed, the inventor of the BBD was first performed in 1994 by fictional baseball player Pedro Cerrano in Major League II. Many thanks to Wild Yams for discovering this and providing the following video. Also thanks to Bateman's Legal Counsel for pointing out that Pedro didn't actually invent the dance. Said BLC: "I think it was a signature move of a teammate who used it to motivate Pedro when he was slumping. I think he was...Asian. I mean, he was talking in some weird language; I think it was...Asian." The teammates name was Tanaka. Watch it:

Labels: Andre Iguodala, Big Balls Dance, Kobe Bryant, Major League II, Sam Cassell