Category: News

Three officers were fired this week from the Wilmington, North Carolina police department after dash cam footage revealed horrifically racist conversations between them.

But before we delve into that, let’s look at a brief timeline of select white supremacist incidents in police departments across the U.S.—and the FBI warning that came in the middle of them—to add some context to this story.

In 1991, a group of Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies were discovered to be part of a “neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang” known as The Vikings—membership that department officials knew about and did nothing to address.

In 1999, an unknown number of officers in three different Cleveland, Ohio police districts were found to have scrawled racist or Nazi graffiti throughout police quarters, including restrooms and locker rooms.

In 2001, two officers in Williamson County, Texas were fired after they were discovered to be members of the Ku Klux Klan.

In 2006, the FBI detailed the specific threat of white supremacists purposefully infiltrating police departments. Though largely (and frustratingly) redacted, an intelligence bulletin describes how white nationalists and skinheads try to blend into police departments by hiding their true beliefs (a practice known as “ghost skinning”) with the purpose of disrupting investigations into supremacist groups and recruiting other white supremacists.

Moving right along, in 2014, a Florida deputy police chief and another officer were fired after an FBI informant outed them as members of the Ku Klux Klan.

In 2015, a ProPublica article describing copious racist messages in a New York cop blog also pointed to other racist incidents around the same time in various U.S. cities’ police departments.

And now, here we are in 2020, watching three Wilmington, North Carolina officers lose their jobs after accidentally recording their blatantly racist and violent conversations.

This is by no means a full list, and North Carolina incident is by no means any less egregious than those that preceded it. In a routine review of dash cam footage, former officer Kevin Piner was heard talking to another officer about the protests for racial justice. He said the police department was only concerned with “kneeling down with the black folks.” He called a Black officer in his department “bad news” and a “piece of shit,” saying, “Let’s see how his boys take care of him when shit gets rough, see if they don’t put a bullet in his head.”

In a conversation with another officer later in the day, Piner called a woman he arrested the day before a “negro” and “n—-r.” He referred to a Black magistrate judge as “fucking negro magistrate,” saying, “She needed a bullet in her head right then and move on. Let’s move the body out of the way and keep going.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, the two officers talked about the possibility of a “civil war” coming, with Piner saying he was going to buy an assault rifle. “We are just gonna go out and start slaughtering them fucking ni—–. I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait,” he said, followed by saying that such a war was needed to “wipe ’em off the fucking map. That’ll put ’em back about four or five generations.”

The full report of what was recorded can be found here.

And a news conference with the city council and the new Wilmington police chief, Donny Williams, who had to deal with this mess on his first day on the job:

There’s a lot of talk about implicit racial bias—racial prejudices that we don’t even know we have—in policing. While that’s an important consideration, we can’t overlook the fact that there are also actual white supremacists within some police departments. How many? No one knows. Those mentioned here are just some of the ones who have been caught and identified. But there have clearly been enough of them that the FBI felt the need to issue a bulletin about it and warn that it was a threat. And what was done with that information in that warning after it came out? Did police departments change the way they screen recruits or do a deep dive into their own ranks? Unclear.

No one is saying that all police officers are blatant white supremacists, obviously. But we’ve seen far too many stories of officers voicing white supremacist beliefs and far too many officers and officials turning the other way instead of outing them and ousting them.

In 2016, Samuel Jones, professor of law at Chicago’s John Marshall School of Law, told PBS News Hour that neither the FBI or police departments had established systems for vetting people for white supremacist ties.

“I cannot imagine that the FBI today could issue a report concerning any kind of threat without people being alarmed and wanting immediate action,” he said. “But in this case there seems to be almost an acceptance of it. The thought is ‘it’s just ideology and they have a right to believe this.'”

The problem is “just ideology” isn’t a small thing when we’re talking about people with the means, power, and authority to take people’s lives. A police officer cannot serve and protect the public if they believe that a large percentage of the public isn’t worth serving or protecting. No matter what our personal beliefs are about policing, we should at least all be able to agree on that.

We’ve been hearing about racism much more frequently the past several weeks, but it’s not because racism just appeared. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Racism is sewn into the fabric of America and it doesn’t always look like overt racism. In fact, it doesn’t even always look like the microaggressions that we feel or see on a daily basis. The language we use is filled with racism that we don’t even realize or see. I like to call this “sneaky racism.” It’s sneaky because it is spoon fed to every American from birth through death, and if you aren’t made aware so you can look for it, it will pass right by you, creating what’s known as implicit bias.

Implicit bias is something that we have little control over. It’s that snap judgment or quick tug in your belly that you equate to intuition or just feeling like you have a better understanding of a situation than you actually do. It’s subconscious in nature and we often don’t even know it’s happening.

In American media, we are fed these biases through our television programs, movies, books, newspapers, and news networks. It’s everywhere, and in order to truly get rid of racism and lower the rate of fatal police shootings of unarmed Black people, we need to seek out and eliminate sneaky racism. The type of implicit bias I’m referring to implies that Black and brown people are inherently dangerous.

Implicit bias is a vicious cycle that Americans are caught in and the first step to breaking the cycle is recognizing it when you see it. A great example is this image of a newspaper page from Mississippi, shared by Orlando Jezebel. The caption reads, “Does anyone else see it. Take all the time you need. #BLM.”

Immediately I noticed the disparity between the two headlining stories. I’ll break it down in case it’s not immediately clear.

The photo of the white man is very small, and looks to be a school photo of some sort. His headline is tiny and he’s in the side margin of the paper. The writer of that piece continually refers to the man as a “teen” throughout the article, which technically is correct as the suspect is 19, but in contrast, Black teens and children are often referred to as men and women in articles (even 12-year-old Tamir Rice was referred to as “the Black male” in an interview with the officer who shot him). This particular man is also accused of murder, but you almost wouldn’t know that by the size of the story in comparison to the other headline sitting flush with this one sharing the same front page.

In the larger photo, we see a Black man who was accused of burglary. Throughout this article the man is referred to as a suspect. The article does not use a school photo, which I’m sure is somewhere publicly as most photos are nowadays; they chose to use an obvious mugshot with him donning an orange jumpsuit.

The way implicit bias is displayed in these articles is blatant if you know to look for it. It may not seem like it’s a big deal, but language matters. By using the term “teen” when describing the white suspect, you are humanizing him and providing him more innocence than the Black suspect. Teens are impulsive and make mistakes. They’re easily forgiven their flaws in the name of a second chance due to a teens inherent naivety.

When you use the term “suspect” it conjures the image of someone that is guilty, or likely guilty. It invokes a feeling of wrong doing with little benefit of the doubt. It’s also peculiar that the story on the burglary took up more of the page than the murder. This is also a play on our psyche, making the Black suspect appear more dangerous than the white suspect. Our eyes will automatically be drawn to the larger photo and headline. A school photo versus a mugshot also aids in altering our emotion for the white suspect, though he was the one accused of murder.

These things are sneaky. I would wager that the editor likely didn’t even notice the disparity. These biases are present in movies and television shows with Black and brown characters who are typically portrayed as maids, drug addicts, drug dealers, thugs, gang members, or someone who generally just needs help to navigate life because they’re somehow doing it all wrong until their fairer skinned counterpart comes to save the day. This problem is starting to be somewhat counteracted with more Black and brown writers being hired to shape some of our favorite shows, but the implicit bias is pervasive, and even Black writers can be guilty of the same biases as white writers since we have all been eating from the same media spoon our entire lives.

As the world continues to wake up from its long slumber and actively works to become anti-racist, I have hope that we can work together to call attention to these biases in media and fix them.

Michael Keaton, who famously played Batman in two Tim Burton movies, 1989’s “Batman” and 1992’s “Batman Returns, is in talks to reprise the role for Warner Bros.’ upcoming DC movie “The Flash.”

If Keaton makes the deal, he may be in for more than just one film. He could be cast as the Dark Knight in several other D.C.-related film projects.

The idea is that Keaton’s older version of Batman would be more of a mentor or guide, like Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The news should be especially exciting to people of a certain age group. To put is simply, for Gen X, Michael Keaton is Batman.

Every era and generation has its own heroes that reflect the values and aspirations of the day. Cowboys have always seemed to reflect the times whether it was John Wayne who played the “white hat” good guy in westerns of of the 1940s or Clint Eastwood who played the outlaw in ’70s Spaghetti westerns.

James Bond has also evolved with the times. A Baby Boomer will swear by Sean Connery and his mid-century Sinatra-like swagger. Gen Xers may love the high-concept and tongue-in-cheek Roger Moore-era Bond, while Millenials swear by the gritty, serious performances by Daniel Craig.

Batman is a similar character. Boomers’ Batman was the campy, colorful TV show from the ’60s starring the intentionally stiff Adam West in his gray tights. Millennials swear by Christian Bale, who played a scarier, gravelly-voiced character.

However, wedged in between is the best Batman, at least if you ask any Gen Xer, Michael Keaton. The Tim Burton Batman films staring Keaton were groundbreaking because they created a dark version of Batman that paid tribute to the character’s pulp roots.

The films were also a nod to recent comic book versions of the character, “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Batman: The Killing Joke.”

These days, it’s assumed that modern adaptations of comic books and reboots of old properties will be dark. It’s become one of the most boring cliches in Hollywood.

The lets-go-dark fad was never more evident than the most recent cinematic return to Gotham, “The Joker” starring Joaquin Phoenix that mistook grit for substance.

In the ’80s, most people associated Batman with the campy ’60s television show starring Adam West and superhero films with the Superman blockbusters starring Christopher Reeve.

Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman” was controversial right off the bat with the casting of Michael Keaton who was most famous for his comedic roles in “Mr. Mom,” “Gung Ho,” and the 1988 Tim Burton hit, “Beetlejuice.”

Keaton was suggested for the role by producer Jon Peters who thought he had an “edgy, tormented quality” after seeing him in “Clean and Sober.”

In the pre-internet world, the blowback for the casting of Keaton was incredible. Warner Bros. received over 50,000 letters from angry comic book fans who couldn’t stomach the idea that Mr. Mom would be playing the Dark Knight.

But when the film came out, Keaton was lauded for his performance.

Hal Hinson from The Washington Post perfectly summed it up saying:

“For Batman purists, Michael Keaton was an upsetting choice, but it’s a choice brilliantly redeemed in realization,” he wrote. “What Keaton brings to his characterization of both Batman and his millionaire-playboy alter ego, Bruce Wayne, is a quality of coiled concentration, a wary vigilance … This is a true star performance, subtle, authoritative and sexually vibrant.”

With his first performance in the Batsuit, Keaton would lay the groundwork for just about all to follow by bringing an intense, brooding quality to both the Batman and Bruce Wayne personas. Since, most film portrayals have been variations on the themes created by Keaton.

“Wayne’s eyes are piercing in a way that flashes icebergs of emotion,” Joshua Meyer form Slashfilm writes. “Keaton’s Batman has a thousand-yard, hard-ass stare that cuts through every other live-action Batman we’ve seen since.”

When asked how he feels about others playing the role, Keaton’s answer is short and sweet. “I’m Batman. I’m very secure in that.”

And Gen X agrees.

It’s officially backyard barbecue season — or, at the very least, backyard grilling season (we’re sticklers). Combined with the likelihood of full-on lockdowns returning to the U.S., that means it’s time to get some cool ingredients in the kitchen and try new things. No more sourdough bread for a few days.

Our recommendation: Truly travel your tastebuds. Forget the failed idea of certain foods being “American” on the 4th and make something completely new. Like this Sumatran Crispy Fish Rendang recipe from Gordon Ramsay’s second season of Uncharted. In season two of the NatGeo show, Ramsay has traveled to Tasmania, India, Norway, Guyana, Lousiana, South Africa, and Indonesia. In each episode, Ramsay meets up with local experts, chefs, foragers, hunters, and even fishing crews.

In the Sumatra episode — which aired Sunday, June 28th — Ramsay and legendary chef and Indonesian food historian William Wongso break down a Crisp Fish Rendang. Having lived in Indonesian and traveled around Sumatra, I can say with authority: This is a dish you definitely want to try.

My recommendation here would be to skip frying the fish and instead throw it on the grill — just slather it in olive oil and salt first. You can easily follow this recipe with either whole tilapia or whole sea bream. Small white fish that are still whole are fairly interchangeable. Also, the ingredients on this list for the chili paste are fairly easy to find. If you can’t find “candlenut,” I’ve seen it supplemented with either macadamia or cashew in a pinch.

Check out the recipe below! Uncharted airs on NatGeo Sundays at 10/9c.

Crispy Fish Rendang

Yields: 1 whole fish, 4 servings

1 whole 2- to 3-lb white fish, scaled and gutted
FOR SPICE PASTE

• 10 shallots, roughly chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 10 large red chilis, chopped
• 2 tsp chopped ginger
• 4 tsp chopped galangal
• 4 tsp ground candlenut
• salt, to taste
• 1 tsp ground white pepper
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tbsp palm sugar
• zest of 1 lime
• 2 cups water

Plus:

• 2 cups and 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 cup coconut cream, 24% fat content

FOR CRISPY FISH

• kosher salt, to taste
• black pepper, to taste
• 1 lime, cut into wedges
• 2 tbsp sliced scallions

METHOD

• In a blender, combine all spice paste ingredients except coconut cream.
• Add 2 tbsp vegetable oil to a wok. When hot, add spice paste and coconut cream. Stay close to it and continue to cook, allowing to caramelize. Remove from heat when paste is dark brown but not burnt. Set aside.
• In a separate wok, heat two cups vegetable oil.
• When oil is hot, be sure to dry off fish as much as possible. Score the skin of the fish with light hash marks and place in the hot oil. Fish will likely pop with any moisture, so be cautious and do not stand too close to fish for the first five minutes of frying.
• After 10 minutes, fish will be crispy and cooked through. Remove from wok and place on a wire resting rack. Season with salt and pepper.
• On a platter, place the crispy fish and top with spice paste. Garnish with sliced scallions and lime wedges, squeezing one lime wedge on fish directly.

Over his two decade-plus career, Christopher Nolan has more or less gotten sterling press, from glowing reviews of his popular movies to fawning profiles that treat him as a brainy genius who makes movies that play like intricate puzzles. He even loves MacGruber! That all changed on Monday, though. After an interview with Anne Hathaway, veteran of The Dark Knight Rises, went viral, in which she said he doesn’t allow people to sit when filming his movies, Nolan suddenly got the worst reviews of his career.

The news came via a chat Hathaway did with her Les Misérables co-star Hugh Jackman for Variety. Jackman was talking about strict directors, and he casually mentioned those he’s worked with who forbid cellphones on set, namely Darren Aronofsky and Denis Villeneuve. Hathaway pointed out he forgot Nolan, with whom he worked on The Prestige. It also made her think about something else he bans:

Chris also doesn’t allow chairs. I worked with him twice. He doesn’t allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they’re sitting, they’re not working. I mean, he has these incredible movies in terms of scope and ambition and technical prowess and emotion. It always arrives at the end under schedule and under budget. I think he’s onto something with the chair thing.

Hathaway likely mentioned it off-handedly, as an eccentric quirk, not as something that particularly bothered her. After all, sitting is bad for the body! Then again, absolutely no sitting is a bit much. And with that, Twitter had finally come for Christopher Nolan.

There was simple mockery:

And the use of popular GIFs.

Some were even more pointed in their criticism, thinking he sounds like a bad chain store manager.

https://twitter.com/kaludiasays/status/1277683723513839616

Some used his own movies against him.

And some pointed out that there’s an awful lot of sitting in the films of Christopher Nolan.

Meanwhile, perhaps one day we’ll get to learn how many chairs there are in the perpetually delayed Tenet.

Scrubs was just one of several shows that saw old episodes removed from streaming services over blackface, joining The Office, Community and even The Golden Girls as classic shows that have had their content altered or removed in recent days. But according to Scrubs showrunner Bill Lawrence, the episodes removed due to blackface may return to Hulu after those scenes are properly edited out.

As TV Line noted, Lawrence apologized for the show’s use of blackface on Fake Doctors, Real Friends, the Scrubs-based podcast (started by show stars Zach Braff and Donald Faison) that deals with both the show and topics in the present.

One of the podcast’s episodes, called Our Difficult Past, featured a discussion of episodes that featured blackface, including one where J.D. wore blackface at a party and another where he and Sarah Chalke’s character wore makeup to look like Turk in fantasy sequences. He apologized to Braff, Faison and Chalke for putting them in an uncomfortable position, describing himself as the “gatekeeper” of what happened in the series as showrunner:

“The reason why that word ‘showrunner’ exists in television is because you’re the gatekeeper, and anything that gets allowed on a show you ultimately have to take responsibility for,” Lawrence said. “So, first off, super sorry that any of you guys had to deal with any stuff because… even though we’re all friends and it was a super creative and reciprocal environment, you guys still, at the end of the day, did and were receptive to doing whatever stuff we told you [to do].”

He also noted that the episodes in question could reappear on the streaming service after editing, which has happened to an episode of The Office last week. Lawrence didn’t confirm that it would happen, but essentially said it was possible:

During the 42-minute discussion, Lawrence also suggested that the episodes depicting blackface will “probably” return to Hulu after he has the chance to remove the offensive material. “Twitter is like, ‘Why did you pull the whole episodes?’ Why didn’t you just edit those moments out and put them back on?’ And I said to one person, ‘It’s a pandemic. I don’t really have an editing facility up right now.’ I’ll probably do that, but the first thing I wanted to do was get them off TV because it bummed me out personally,” he said. “It just made me feel sh–ty.”

Based on that comment it may take a while for those episodes to return, but it seems Lawrence is doing his best to acknowledge why they were removed and take responsibility for the trope’s use in the show. You can listen to the full episode of the podcast and conversation between the show’s creator and its stars here.

[via TV Line]

When the NBA announced plans to bring players back to their home markets and begin training camp before convening in Disney for the league’s restart, the expectation was that there would be positive COVID-19 tests. When the league’s first 300 tests returned with 16 positives, the league considered that a relatively positive sign, and up until Monday, Rudy Gobert remained the league’s lone known symptomatic positive test.

However, Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie announced on Monday, in a message to Shams Charania of The Athletic, that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and has had symptoms, including fever and chest tightness, and does not know if he’ll be able to join the team in Orlando following self-quarantine.

“Over the past few months, I have been diligent about protecting myself and others from COVID-19 by following all designated protocol and quarantining,” Dinwiddie told The Athletic. “I was ready and prepared to rejoin my teammates as we were to be an early entry team in the resumed season. I flew private to return to New York, passed multiple COVID-19 tests over my first several days in New York and was able to participate in a couple practices within the first week.

“Originally, we were supposed to be one of the teams to enter into the Orlando bubble early, but training camp got switched back to New York and unfortunately I am now positive. Given that I have experienced symptoms, including fever and chest tightness, it is unclear on whether or not I’ll be able to participate in Orlando.

“Hindsight is 20/20.”

Gobert experienced symptoms, including a loss of taste and smell, the latter of which he still says he’s not fully recovered, but the other known positive tests around the league had been asymptomatic cases. The hope is that Dinwiddie will have a mild case and make a full recovery, but it should be noted, even mild cases can still be very difficult and symptoms can last for a significant period of time. On top of that, the unknowns of the long-term effects of the virus remain a concern for some players, as decreased lung function and other issues have been reported in patients even after “recovery.”

Dinwiddie’s positive test also raises concerns about the league’s restart plans, as he passed multiple tests prior to a positive test and even practiced with the team. In theory, this would be mitigated by the bubble once they are there, but by allowing teams to reconvene in home markets prior to bringing everyone to Orlando, there are more opportunities for players to contract the virus outside their own facility.

The Nets, who are currently seventh in the East at 30-34, will restart play without Wilson Chandler, who opted out earlier this week, and now could find themselves going to Orlando without their starting point guard as well. The main concern is Dinwiddie’s long-term health, with basketball as a secondary concern, but Brooklyn may be significantly shorthanded when the restart arrives.

Being a mother is a powerful thing. No one knows this more than Breanna Lockwood and her mother Julie Loving, who might just have the most appropriate last name around. For years, Breanna, 29, and her husband Aaron Lockwood, 28, have tried to become parents. But after 476 injections, eight IVF frozen embryo transfers, two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy, they were left heartbroken. Until a hero offered to carry the baby for them. That hero was Julie Loving, Breanna’s 51-year-old mother.

Breanna and Aaron became high school sweethearts and never looked back. In 2016, the two were married. Then it was time for the next plunge in life. Breanna had always known she wanted to be a mother from an early age. They had hoped to do some traveling during their first year of marriage before starting a family. Those plans were put on hold when Breanna’s grandfather fell ill, as she wanted so badly for him to meet his great-grandchild before he passed.

At first, they tried to pregnant on their own. But after a year without success, they decided to make an appointment with Dr. Brian Kaplan at the Fertility Clinics of Illinois. It was there with Dr. Kaplan that they began vitro fertilization. After four years of hope, followed by pain and heartbreak, they gave up trying. The only option left was to find a surrogate, which can cost over $100,000. As Breanna told the Chicago Tribune, “Physically and mentally, I knew I would push through anything, but there’s not a lot where you can push financially, and I think that’s what scared me.”

Just as they thought all hope was lost, enter the hero: Breanna’s mother, Julie Loving. For years, Loving watched helplessly as Breanna and Aaron tirelessly tried to start building a family of their own. Throughout that time, Loving offered to carry the baby for them. “You get in that mode where you’d do anything to help your kids,” Loving to the Tribune. “When you see your kids hurting, and you know that you could help them, I don’t know how to explain it.” And Julie Loving kept offering. “She texted me, and I said, ‘You’re crazy,'” Lockwood recalls. Finally, when the couple seemed to have exhausted all options, they made an appointment for Julie to see Dr. Kaplan.

Before they knew it, the family was at The Fertility Centers of Illinois: Loving inquiring about being a surrogate for her daughter. “This is a very unusual situation,” said Dr. Kaplan to the Tribune. Beyond Julie’s profoundly loving heart, she has also run 19 marathons, competing in countless triathlons and is in very healthy condition. Her primary care physician, her OBGYN, a high-risk obstetrician and even a psychologist signed off on her being her daughters surrogate, and she passed with flying colors.

After a successful transfer of the embryo, a whole lot of science and even more love, the result led to Julie Loving carrying her own grandchild. She is due November 12^th, 2020. Breanna’s gratitude toward her mother goes far beyond even the brave and selfless gesture of being her surrogate. As she puts it: “I feel like I’ve learned everything about being a mom, from my mom. Apparently, the baby is a kicker, but if we have learned anything about Julie, it is going to take quite a boot to ruffle even one of her feathers. You just fall in love more and more every day, the stronger she gets, really feeling her and learning her ways,” she said to the Tribune. “I’m so happy that I can help my daughter and help her husband become a family. That’s really all I want, is to help them.”

One thing is for sure, if the world had more Julie Loving’s, it sure would be a better place.

New movie Fridays have largely gone away in the age of quarantine, as darkened theaters mean new releases are few and far between. Disney+ seems intent upon bringing movie night back, however, as it announced on Monday that it would release content new to the service following a “Movie Night” format throughout the summer. The service released a video highlighting the new movies hitting Disney+ this summer, starting with Friday’s premiere of Hamilton.

The video deemed it the “summer event you’ve been waiting for,” and for good reason. With theaters still closed in most states, the release calendar is barren until at least the end of July, and things might get pushed even further back as coronavirus cases continue to rise in the South. Here are the movies the trailer teased:

The Greatest Showman
Hamilton
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against The Universe
Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Beauty and the Beast
Avengers: Infinity War
The Mighty Ducks
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
The One And Only Ivan
Solo
The Incredibles 2
Artemis Fowl
Ant-Man and the Wasp

It’s not entirely clear if movies will come out each Friday, but the video promises new content every week in the summer. And while movies like Solo and Infinity War were already available streaming on another service (Netflix), that won’t rain on Disney’s parade of new content this summer. It’s still a lot more than what you’ll see in theaters this year.

This week represents the 10th anniversary of the beginning of 2010 free agency when the dynamics of the NBA shifted and the era of superstars teaming up began in earnest, as LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh joined forces in Miami.

The announcements of Bosh and Wade came on July 7, with LeBron making “The Decision” on July 8, but the wheels were in motion long before that. Even though there had been discussion amongst themselves about playing together, with a bond that was formed most notably during their summers with USA Basketball, there was still work to do in selling the group on joining forces — and that Miami was the right destination.

The Bulls were heavily in the mix, trying to pitch Dwyane Wade on coming back home, and were willing to look at moving Luol Deng to create the requisite space for all three players. However, it was Pat Riley and the Heat that got the three players on board, with Riley using his championship pedigree as his biggest bargaining chip. As Chris Bosh recalled to Brian Windhorst of ESPN for a 10-year retrospective on that free agency summer, Riley broke out his collection of championship rings, kept in a velvet bag similar to a Crown Royal bag, and even went so far as to give Bosh a 2006 Heat championship ring with a promise that he’d return it once he won one of his own.

However, as Bosh says, he still has that ring as Riley may have forgotten about their deal.

“Oh, yeah, Pat brought his rings out. It looked just like a Crown Royal bag,” Bosh said. “He puts it down, like boom. Big boy talk. When he ended the meeting, Pat gave me a 2006 Heat championship ring.”

“Take it. Keep it. Give it back to me when you win one,” Riley said to Bosh.

“I still haven’t given it back,” Bosh said. “I wonder if he even remembers that? I think I mentioned it once, like, ‘Yo, do you want that ring back?’ And he said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I kept it moving.”

That means, technically, Bosh has as many Heat title rings as Wade and one more than LeBron, thanks to a somewhat forgetful Pat Riley. It’s a hell of a pitch from Riley to hand over a ring and say “keep this til we win one,” which shouldn’t be a surprise given their bombastic “not four, not five, not six” introductory speech. The Big 3 Heat would win two titles of their own, making four Finals in their four years together, and their lasting impact may be how the three players worked together to make the financials work and sacrifice what was needed to make a potential dynasty happen.

While pairing stars wasn’t new, how the Heat did it was and it has had a huge impact on team-building going forward, with star players seemingly having more influence on personnel and working behind the scenes to get themselves paired up with friends and preferred teammates. Windhorst’s look back includes some fascinating insight into the chase for LeBron, Wade, and Bosh, from missteps by the Bulls — who still believe they were closest to the trio behind Miami — to the Knicks and Nets meetings with LeBron.