It's always fun when a basketball team's bench takes on an identity of its own. Getting to watch a group of guys who are not quite good enough to be starters gel into a cohesive unit of their own adds another layer of excitement to the game, and so it's no surprise people often want to give cool nicknames to such bench units. The Bulls' "Bench Mob" from last season is a perfect example.
But now the Los Angeles Clippers have gone and ruined the whole practice of nicknaming bench units, because their group of talented subs is now known as "A Tribe Called Bench." From ESPN:
Dan Woike of the Orange County Register threw out "Mob Deep," but he found out the New York Knicks had used that nickname last year. Woike then got a tweet from a San Francisco Bay Area follower with the handle @squidwai and "A Tribe Called Bench" was born.
Over the past three games, the Clippers have started to play highlights of the second unit to A Tribe Called Quest's "Scenario" and the #ATribeCalledBench hashtag has started trending on Twitter in Los Angeles during Clippers games.
That is the dumbest nickname of all time. The worst. It's awful. It's just the name of a popular rap group with the word "bench" inserted into it. It could just as easily be "Cash Bench Millionaires" or "The Beastie Bench." Actually, I kind of like "The Beastie Bench." The Clips should use that instead.
[ESPN]