MINNEAPOLIS — Sam Cassell doesn’t remember the exact year or opponent.
But he was a member of the Milwaukee Bucks, sometime around the turn of the millennium, and he was cooped up in his hotel on the road. As he flipped through channels, he stumbled on the 1994 movie Major League II and decided to watch it.
Advertisement
In one of the funnier parts of the film, Isuro Tanaka (played by Takaaki Ishibashi) tells teammate Pedro Cerrano (played by Dennis Haysbert) that he has “no marbles,” gesturing with both of his hands below his groin in a cupping motion.
Later, Tanaka taunts Cerrano with the same gesture in the team’s dugout. Cerrano then demands to be inserted to pinch hit and drills a game-winning home run. As he’s trotting to first base, he mimics Tanaka’s taunt, alternating his hands as a celebratory expression of big cojones.
Cassell burst out laughing while watching the scene and wondered if he could find a way to incorporate the celebration into his game. Conveniently, the next night, Cassell says he hit a decisive shot and spontaneously debuted the “Big Balls” dance, elevating the standard of NBA celebrations.
“I just took it and I ran with it,” said Cassell, who is now an assistant coach on Doc Rivers’ staff with the Clippers.
His Bucks teammates, who had no idea Cassell had planned to unveil the celebration, laughed at the gesture and were in shock he had the gumption to actually do it on a national stage.
But most of all, they loved it.
“I remember Ray Allen looked at me like, ‘What is that?!’” Cassell said.
The celebration became Cassell’s patented move when connecting on a dagger or clutch basket — particularly in a hostile road environment — to prove he had the guts to take and make such shots. Though he started it in Milwaukee, the dance rose to prominence in Minnesota during the Timberwolves’ Western Conference semifinals series against the Sacramento Kings.
While some have tried to label it the “Onions” dance or the “Sam Cassell” dance to make it sound innocent, Cassell says there is only one way to refer to the celebration.
“‘Big Balls’ dance,” Cassell said. “That’s what I call it.”
The dance is as amusing as it is polarizing — the NBA basically banned it during the 2010-11 season, when it began fining players between $15,000 to $25,000 for busting it out in games.
Advertisement
That didn’t stop players, as several continued using Cassell’s celebration for a few more years despite the ensuing fine. The league eventually succeeded in phasing out the gesture, though, as the last player to use the dance was then-Lakers forward Julius Randle at the end of the 2015-2016 season — almost three years ago. (Randle was fined $15,000 for his artistry.)
But in the beginning, before it was outlawed, Cassell used it selectively and strategically, often when sealing a win or taking a late lead. His teammates, already in a good mood, became supercharged with energy and confidence — and a good laugh.
“They got a kick out of it,” Cassell said.
The celebration spread internally with the 2005-06 Clippers, with Cassell’s teammates, including Elton Brand and Corey Maggette, implementing it into their arsenal that season.
“It was kind of an energy boost for the whole team, you know?” said Shaun Livingston, who played with Cassell from 2005 to 2007. “Seeing that swagger. Then it carried with us. We’d come on the court and we’re playing with that same swagger. That was the way that he led. It was that swag. I don’t want to call it cockiness, but you know, it was a little bit of that on the court.”
Rivers, who coached Cassell during the 2007-08 season before bringing him on his coaching staff, remembers the impact Cassell’s antics had on that 2008 championship Celtics squad, which was full of tough, serious veterans.
With the Celtics playing the Spurs in San Antonio in mid-March, a possible Finals preview that season, Cassell scored 17 points off the bench, including the go-ahead bucket with 46 seconds remaining to help the Celtics secure a 93-91 victory.
“Sam came in and made two shots and started doing the dance,” Rivers said. “The whole team went nuts.”
After Cassell’s first few years of using the dance, it became the go-to celebration for much of the NBA.
Advertisement
Whenever a player would hit a clutch shot, he’d run back toward his bench swaying back and forth with the signature cupping motion. Kobe Bryant, Eddie House, Kevin Martin, Marco Bellinelli, Caron Butler, Josh Smith, Jameer Nelson, Andray Blatche and Randle each did it at various times.
When asked who has mimicked his celebration the best, Cassell didn’t have to think long before answering.
“Kobe,” Cassell said. “I liked Kobe’s. Kobe’s was good. Kobe’s was real good. I was like, ‘OK, Kobe. Don’t take my dance now. Don’t take my dance from me. You might take it. You’re the focal point of the league. Don’t take my dance from me.’”
It didn’t hurt that Bryant was the most high-profile player to use the celebration — and that he was sure to give Cassell proper credit.
“Kobe said, ‘I got that from Sam Cassell.’ That was cool,” Cassell said.
Despite the good-natured humor of the celebration, not everyone is a fan. “It’s an obscene and inappropriate gesture,” a league spokesman told Grantland in 2014. “There are better ways to celebrate.”
Cassell thinks the league’s fine is far too steep.
“It’s so stupid,” Cassell says. “C’mon. It’s so stupid. It’s just so stupid to take somebody’s money for that. Like, c’mon now.
“It ain’t like you’re giving somebody the finger. That’s a fine. You know what I’m saying? C’mon.”
Cassell hopes he runs into NBA commissioner Adam Silver over All-Star Weekend in Charlotte, as he plans to bring up the fine and see if the NBA can reduce it — or eliminate it altogether.
“Like, ‘Why $25,000?’” Cassell said. “The good thing about Adam Silver is he’ll give you an answer. That’s what I enjoy about him. But it don’t matter. It’s not disrespecting anybody. I think some of the older people don’t really know what it is that come to the game. The younger generation, they do more than that.
Advertisement
“But hey, if it’s outlawed, you gotta respect the rules of the game.”
The late Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders, who coached Cassell from 2003 to 2005, wasn’t fond of the dance either.
Back in 2014, then-Timberwolves guard Kevin Martin was fined $15,000 by the NBA for using the celebration in a game against the Chicago Bulls.
When asked about the fine, Saunders told reporters that he didn’t like the celebration because Cassell had injured his hip doing it in the 2004 playoffs against the Kings. In the next round, the Western Conference finals, the Timberwolves lost 4-2 to the Los Angeles Lakers, with Cassell clearly hampered throughout the series before ultimately missing the final two games.
To this day, the 2003-04 season is the furthest the Timberwolves have advanced in the playoffs. Cassell’s injury is a sore subject for fans, as many believe they would have beaten the Lakers and then the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals had he not hurt his hip. Some blame the “Big Balls” dance.
“My dad said he would have maybe had an NBA championship if Sam didn’t do that dance,” said Ryan Saunders, Flip’s son and the current coach of the Timberwolves.
According to Cassell, it is a urban legend that he injured his hip doing the dance. Despite Saunders’ comments about the dance coming off as matter-of-fact, Cassell said Saunders wasn’t being serious.
“I wish,” Cassell said. “I wish it was. Fuck, I had surgery. I didn’t know somebody had to have some major surgery dancing.”
There is no modern-day equivalent to the “Big Balls” dance, but Lance Stephenson’s air guitar, D’Angelo Russell’s “Ice in my veins” and Russell Westbrook’s “Cradling the baby” appear to be modern-day twists on it.
Still, there’s simply no way to replicate the sheer hilarity and absurdity of a player flashing his metaphorical big balls while running up the floor.
Advertisement
If Cassell gets his wish, and the celebration is eventually permitted again, he already knows the player that he’d like to see do the celebration.
“You know who’d be a good guy to do that?” Cassell said. “Lou Williams. He has big … He takes some tough shots, some big shots. You have to be willing to take a big shot to do the dance, in my opinion.”
All these years later, Cassell’s name is probably most associated with the dance — more than with his three championships with Houston and Boston, more than with his clutch shooting, more than with his legendary trash-talking.
The celebration has taken a life and legacy of its own.
“Dah. It’s fun, man,” Cassell said. “You can be remembered for a lot of worse things than that. But it’s cool. It was fun while I did it. When I see people do it now — I seen a kid playing 15-and-under basketball do it. I was like, ‘Wow. OK, shawty. OK.’”
Ryan Saunders claims that that isn’t new — children were mimicking Cassell in Minnesota 15 years ago.
“When you’re a kid growing up and you see a guy like Sam hit a shot like that (against the Kings in the 2004 playoffs), he had a lot of people in Minnesota doing that dance on the playground or in the gyms,” Ryan Saunders said.
The ethos of the “Big Balls” dance stems from the bravado of big-shot taking and making in victory. Cassell will bust it out against Clippers assistant coaches and player development coaches in one-on-one battles and shooting contests. He’s still a trash-talker at heart.
The problem now is Cassell can’t shoot like he used to.
“Occasionally,” Cassell said of how often he still does the celebration. “Occasionally. But these guys outshoot me.”
While he’s winning, though, Cassell will gloat, cupping his groin and yelling, “Look at this. You can’t hold me.”
As Rivers put it: “You have to have big balls to do that dance.”
(Top Photo: Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)
