This Dance Inspired By 'Moonlight' Is Almost As Gorgeous As The Real Thing

Critics have described Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” ― the stunning film awarded Best Picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday ― as a cinematic poem, in part because of its masterful score, stretches of silence, and piercing use of color. 

A ballet-infused dance inspired by the motion picture, choreographed by Robert Battle of New York’s Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, distills the movie’s poetic essence into two minutes of ecstatic movement. 

Under a blue luminosity reminiscent of the moon’s glare, dancers Jamar Roberts, Christopher Taylor and Jeremy T. Villas move to the film’s rapturous score, created by Academy Award-nominated composer Nicholas Britell. 

The three dancers represent the film’s protagonist, Chiron, at various phases of his life ― childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Their bodies communicate Chiron’s struggle to understand and accept himself, trembling back and forth between expression and suppression without saying a word.

In the video, directed by by Anna Rose Holmer of 2016’s “The Fits,” the dazzling blue light illuminates the dancing figures, their every facial expression and undulating muscle telling a unique story. Like the film, Holmer’s short revels in the sensuality and sensitivity of the dancers, qualities which are often overlooked in stereotypical depictions of black men.

Bask in the glow of “Moonlight”s excellence over and over again with the video above, courtesy of Nowness

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Cop Who Fatally Shot Philando Castile Pleads Not Guilty

A police officer who fatally shot a black motorist last year in suburban Saint Paul, Minnesota, has pleaded not guilty. 

Officer Jeronimo Yanez of the St. Anthony Police Department entered his plea Monday in response to three felony charges, including second-degree manslaughter, that stem from the July 2016 traffic-stop shooting of Philando Castile. The aftermath of that shooting was live-streamed on social media, catapulting the case to nationwide infamy.

A tentative trial date has been set for May 30. 

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Yanez, 28, has been free since he was charged in November. He is currently on leave from the St. Anthony police, where he has worked for four years. 

Lawyers for Yanez unsuccessfully attempted to have the case thrown out, arguing that Castile was liable in his own death due to allegedly using marijuana before the traffic stop and disobeying police orders. The latter claim conflicts with an eyewitness account from Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who live-streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting from the passenger’s seat with a bleeding Castile next to her.

Ramsey County District Court Judge William Leary III denied the defense’s request to dismiss the case earlier this month. Leary was himself a replacement for Judge Edward Wilson, whose removal from the case the defense requested in December. 

Under state law, the prosecution and the defense are each allowed to make one request for a judge to be removed without having to state a reason.

“We only get one removal but we felt [based on our] research and my personal experience… that it was important to remove [Wilson]… for our client to get a fair trial,” Earl Gray, one of Yanez’s attorneys, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press in December.

Wilson is one of just four black judges among the 29 justices in Ramsey County District Court. 

Racial bias has emerged as a significant possible factor in Castile’s death. 

Castile, a lunchroom supervisor, had no felony record. Nevertheless, he’d been cited by police while driving at least 31 times prior to his fatal traffic stop.

Black residents have said St. Anthony police engage in racial profiling of black drivers in the predominantly white suburb. 

Police scanner audio of Castile’s traffic stop indicates that he was pulled over because an officer ― who is not identified in the audio, but is believed to be Yanez ― thought Castile matched the description of a robbery suspect based on “the wide-set nose.” 

After Yanez took Castile’s identification and insurance information, Castile, who was licensed for concealed carry, informed the officer that he had a firearm.

According to police documents, Yanez told Castile not to take the gun out, and Castile told him he was only reaching for his wallet. Yanez then shot Castile several times while Reynolds sat in the passenger seat and her young daughter sat in the back. 

Reynolds switched on the streaming app Facebook Live and narrated the aftermath. 

“He was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm,” Reynolds said in the video. “He shot his arm off.”

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

What I Learned During Black History Month

The people who like arguing whether or not Black History Month should be a thing can continue having that debate every February until our descendants all belong to one composite race, but I’m not wasting my time with it. And while I understand where Morgan Freeman was coming from when he told Mike Wallace that “Black History is American History” back in 2006, I’d rather not get stuck in semantics here. Observing Black History Month is good for me. I’d say it’s good for us, but I’m trying to limit the use of plural pronouns in my writing.

After college, once I sobered up enough to feel a sense of lost opportunity at having glossed over the literature put in front of me for four years, I started putting in an honest effort to flesh out my world view. Now I read widely, and I write highfalutin essays on the HuffPost blog without anyone ever asking to see my journalism degree. Being that this is an age of choice overload and I don’t have professors to assign me textbooks anymore, I like to let the calendar decide my reading material from time to time. In this case, it’s Black History Month and I happen to be in a seasonal phase of forcing myself to do open mics, so I picked up Darryl Littleton’s Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African-Americans Taught Us to Laugh.

 

The first few chapters were tough, covering minstrelsy and the legacy of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, a cinematic glorification of the Ku Klux Klan that was screened at the White House in 1915. Being a white American and reading through ugly patches of history can be daunting if you’re not in the mood to feel like a beneficiary of evil, but then again so can listening to “white saviors” like Sally Boynton Brown, a DNC chair candidate, talk about shutting “other white people” down while running against four minority candidates. In the current climate, where Trump just hosted a “little breakfast” and Pence hashtagged #BlackHistoryMonth in a tweet celebrating the first Republican president, some white knights compensate by amping up their “shut up and listen” rhetoric. I’ll get behind the listening part, but I operate under the assumption that nobody has any interest in shutting up.

 

On Super Bowl Sunday, I saw Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro in a theater full of white people, wondering how many in the audience would force the fact that they’d seen the Oscar-nominated civil rights documentary into conversations later that night. And here I am forcing it into this essay. While Trump used his Black History Month speech to talk about himself and bash CNN, I’m writing a personal essay on the subject at a time when more black voices should be heard with the intent to learn. To be fair to myself, though, this isn’t broadcast media. It’s a blog. I’m not a firebrand taking up space on the airwaves; I’m a self-indulgent “content creator” gloating over my commitment to truth, however ugly it is. And if I really wanted to justify being long-winded here, I could always just compromise what little integrity I have by citing the prevailing idea that “white silence is violence” and therefore I mustn’t shut up, but rather spoonfeed my readers divine wokeness any time I feel any hint of unease regarding my place in a history I see repeating itself.

 

When Dave Chappelle was about to do a show for FOX based on his life, executives told him that his best friend on the show had to be white. Mystro Clark recalls Chappelle responding with something along the lines of, “White people are narcissistic. They like to look at themselves all day.” I can’t speak for the others, but there’s no point in denying that I like looking at myself. That said, even though I’ve been likened to a poor man’s Chuck Bass, I’m less invested in Ed Westwick’s character in Gossip Girl than I am in Issa Rae’s character in Insecure. I wouldn’t know this if my girlfriend didn’t curate our programming once in awhile. And if I wasn’t currently using Black History Month as a kind of prompt, I wouldn’t be digging up clips from Def Comedy Jam, ComicView and One Night Stand on YouTube, finding formidable voices shaped in part by the Black experience in America – something my ego has to concede I’m not equipped to grasp.

 

When asked, “How are we going to get rid of racism?” in that 60 Minutes segment over a decade ago, Morgan Freeman said “Stop talking about it.” If that’s the winning strategy, good luck. Race is hot right now, for obvious reasons, and even though cliché truisms like “we have work to do” are as fruitless as recycled dick jokes at the open mics, people can’t help themselves. Facebook statuses by self-anointed “allies” abound, collecting dutiful likes before getting lost in the din of standardized language espoused by everyday progressives. I understand wanting to change hearts, but I can’t bring myself to believe that status updates lauding Moonlight do that. The racist homophobes will have to watch the movie for themselves, and if they miss it, hopefully they’ll stumble on another tour de force down the line that is outside of their comfort zones. Roxane Gay wrote: “Audiences are ready for more black film – more narrative complexity, more black experiences being represented in contemporary film, more artistic experimentation, more black screenwriters and directors allowed to use their creative talents beyond the struggle narrative.” Some audiences are, some aren’t. Either way, it’s probably time to open the floodgates in a tasteful way.

 

I suspect a lot of the people canceling their Netflix subscriptions over the innocuous trailer for the upcoming “Dear White People” series are some of the same people who rail against the “sensitive snowflakes” championing PC culture. Thin skin and hypocrisy are huge right now. I will admit to thinking MTV’s instructional video Dear White Guys was a lazy pot stirrer piggybacking on the “school the bros” trend, but it didn’t offend me, and if it had, I’d be too embarrassed to admit it. In fact, I went as far as to obey the thing, giving up the catchphrase “I’m woke” in favor of “I have a hard time believing Paul Mooney wouldn’t like me.”

The internet’s constant codification of social decorum is nothing personal. Or if it is, so what? The important thing is to make an effort to learn, even if it means having to look past Liberal Media’s tendency to play dad. Historian Peniel Joseph wrote a CNN editorial explaining why we need Black History Month now more than ever. It made a lot of sense to me, but then again, what do I know? Just a little more than I did in January.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Google Pledges More Than $11 Million To Racial Justice Organizations

Google has never been shy about its support of black communities, and it’s recently doubled down on that commitment. 

The company announced Thursday that their humanitarian division, Google.org, pledged a total of $11.5 million toward research and data analysis for organizations dedicated to achieving racial equality.

Among the organizations the tech giant provided funding for were the Equal Justice InitiativeCenter for Policing EquityMeasures for Justice and Impact Justice. A majority of the organizations are centered on criminal justice reform. 

The idea for the pledge came after members of the company’s Black Googler Network researched national policing data after repeated high-profile incidents of police brutality over the summer, Justin Steele, principal at Google.org, told CNN Tech

“We were finding that the data in this space is really minimal,” Steele said. “[So] we started looking at [giving] grants around data science, policing and sentencing.”

In 2015, Google gave $2.35 million to organizations involved in Black Lives Matter activism, despite the “controversy” that surrounded the movement.

In addition to organizations focused on the black community, Google has also been very vocal about its support for LGBTQ citizens

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9 Things Elizabeth Taylor Taught Us About The Art Of Love

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Sure, she was married eight times, but there’s no denying that Elizabeth Taylor was a woman who knew how to live and love.

With her joie de vivre and insatiable appetite for the opposite sex, Taylor had the kind of love life most of us can only dream about. She lived her best life and in the process, taught us quite a bit about relationships before she died at age 79 in 2011.

In honor of what would have been her 85th birthday, here are nine things we learned about love from Liz, the fiercest old Hollywood dame of all. 

1. DO play by your own relationship rules, society’s expectations be damned.

“I don’t pretend to be an ordinary housewife. I am not and couldn’t be,” the mom of four once remarked. And it was true — the actress was anything but ordinary. While her peers played the perfect housewife in photo spreads for Life and Look magazines, La Liz made no bones about her career ambition and racked up husbands like it was NBD at a time when divorce wasn’t nearly as accepted as it is now. She was seriously a woman before her time.

2. DO marry someone who thinks you are God’s gift to humanity.

Taylor’s fifth (and sixth!) husband Richard Burton waxed poetic about his wife in his private diaries:

“She is shy and witty, she is nobody’s fool, she is a brilliant actress, she is beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography,” he wrote. “She can be arrogant and willful, she is clement and loving, Dulcis Imperatrix, she is Sunday’s child, she can tolerate my impossibilities and my drunkenness, she is an ache in the stomach when I am away from her, and she loves me!”

Yeah, we think we could get used to someone fawning over us like that.

3. DON’T steal your friend’s husband. But if you do, be sure to patch things up with her. Sisters before misters.

You would think things would have been awkward between Elizabeth Taylor and the late Debbie Reynolds after Eddie Fisher left Reynolds for Taylor (the couple’s longtime friend) in 1959. Instead, the two women remained pals until Taylor’s death in March 2011.

“Women liked her and men adored her — my husband included — and her love for her children is enduring,” Reynolds told Entertainment Weekly after Taylor’s passing. “People always assume you’re going to carry a grudge, but I don’t do that. We passed through that with time.”

4. DON’T turn down diamonds from your significant other, even if they’re given as a post-fight peace offering.

Taylor reportedly accepted a pave diamond-heart necklace after one of her legendary screaming matches with Burton. It would have been rude not to accept, right?

5. DON’T try to figure out the opposite sex. If he’s just not that into you, shrug your shoulders and move on.

 

“I suppose when they reach a certain age some men are afraid to grow up,” Dame Elizabeth once remarked. “It seems the older the men get, the younger their new wives get.” We know the type. Still, if Taylor taught us anything about love, it’s that there are plenty of fish in the sea, so if the person you’re with doesn’t think you’re young or pretty enough, tell them to get lost.

6. DO expect arguments. 

Disagreements are an inevitable part of any relationship. Taylor and Burton were so prepared for them, they would reportedly rent three suites when they checked into hotels ― one above and another below their own. That way, the couple figured, their neighbors would be spared if one of their infamous lovers’ quarrels broke out.

7. DON’T settle until you’ve found the one. But DO admit it’s kind of crazy that you’re still looking for him four or five marriages in.

“I am a very committed wife,” Taylor once said. “And I should be committed too — for being married so many times.”

8. DON’T underestimate the need for passion in life. 

“I’ve always admitted that I’m ruled by my passions,” Taylor said. No kidding. When it came to love, Liz was insatiable — so much so that the Vatican accused her of “erotic vagrancy” when she took up with Burton, her married co-star in the 1966 film “Cleopatra.” After that, the couple lived out a totally epic whirlwind romance: marrying in 1964, making up after epic fights time and time again, and eventually divorcing in 1974… only to remarry in a private African ceremony sixteen months later.

“Maybe we loved each other too much,” Elizabeth said, as if such a thing were possible.

9. DON’T mope over a failed romance. 

But what if a relationship doesn’t work out? We’ve always been partial to Taylor’s advice on getting over someone: “Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together.”  

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Trump's DOJ Will Drop Claim That Texas Voter ID Law Was Purposefully Discriminatory

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WASHINGTON ― Reversing a position the Justice Department has maintained for years, the Trump administration’s Civil Rights Division will state in federal court this week that the federal government no longer claims Texas legislators acted with discriminatory intent in 2011 when they passed one of the strictest voter ID laws in the nation.

The Justice Department will still take the position that the Texas voter ID law has a discriminatory impact on black and Latino voters, according to a source familiar with their decision. It’s unclear at this point whether DOJ will take the position that Texas legislatures acted without discriminatory intent, or if they simply will remain neutral on the question, but a filing is expected by the end of the day. 

The DOJ’s new position is a disappointment to voting rights advocates, and evidently within the Civil Rights Division, where lawyers were worried about the future of the division under Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Federal court records indicated that John Gore, currently the No. 2 official in the Civil Rights Division, will represent the Justice Department in federal court on Tuesday. 

That’s quite unusual: Gore’s position is typically managerial, and there are any number of career Civil Rights Division attorneys who normally would argue the case, including several line attorneys in the Voting Section who have been working on the Texas case for years. (The acting head of the Civil Rights Division in the Trump administration, Tom Wheeler, is recused from the Texas voter ID case because he offered Texas lawmakers advice on writing the law.) Before he joined Trump’s Justice Department, Gore defended Republican redistricting plans from court challenges. Gore also helped file an amicus brief in support of Virginia’s voter ID law, though that state’s law was less restrictive than other voter ID laws and was upheld by another federal appeals court.

The issue before the federal court is whether Texas would be placed under pre-clearance, requiring it to run any changes to its election laws by the federal government before they go into effect. Texas had previously been required to clear such changes, but a 2013 Supreme Court decision gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, after which Texas tried to move forward with the implementation of the law.

The Texas voter ID law ― signed by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary ― was called an “unconstitutional poll tax” by a federal judge in 2014. Though the judge said she found no “smoking guns” that revealed a racist intention behind the law, she found it was passed with discriminatory intent. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit found the law had a discriminatory impact, but kicked the question of whether it was purposefully discriminatory back down to the lower court.

The outside civil rights groups that are part of the case will press on without the support of Sessions’ Justice Department.

This story will be updated with details on DOJ’s filing.

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

'Sesame Street' Shares Rad Vintage Clips To Celebrate Black History Month

This February, parents, educators and entertainers have celebrated Black History Month with lessons about hidden figures, original pieces of art and other powerful tributes.

“Sesame Street” honored black history by unearthing some old clips from its archive. The show shared three vintage clips featuring black icons like Maya Angelou, Ray Charles and Erykah Badu on YouTube.

A spokesperson for the show told The Huffington Post that representation is a very important part of “Sesame Street,” which has featured a diverse cast and stories about appreciating differences and similarities throughout its 47-year history.

“Celebrating diversity and inclusion is in our DNA,” she said. “Studies show that kids engage and learn more fully when they see themselves reflected onscreen, and ‘Sesame Street’ is for ALL children around the world.”

The spokesperson added that they’re always looking for more ways to be inclusive and recently launched a fellowship program to bring more diverse voices into the writers’ room.

“We know the power our characters have to reach and teach children – and influence their behavior,” she told HuffPost. “Beyond ABCs and 123s, our program delivers lessons including inclusivity, mutual respect and understanding – which are critical lessons for developing kindness, empathy, and compassion.”

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

5-Year-Old Recreates Photo Of An Iconic Woman Every Day Of Black History Month

In an empowering celebration of Black History Month, a mother and daughter teamed up to recreate photos of iconic black women.

Every day in February, Cristi Jones of Kent, Washington, has dressed her daughter, 5-year-old Lola, as an iconic black woman, helped her recreate a photo and shared the results on Twitter. Throughout the month, Lola has channeled modern women making history like ballet dancer Misty Copeland, civil rights leaders like Rosa Parks and more.

Jones told The Huffington Post that the most difficult part of the project has been narrowing down the list of people for Lola to dress up as, since she only recreates one photo per day.

“I tried to pick a diverse group with varied backgrounds,” she said. “I wanted to highlight their accomplishments, regardless of their personal or political views. She just needs to know how they affected the world, so I picked women that could teach her a lesson in some way.”

Lola’s own wardrobe has been helpful for most of the project, and when it wasn’t Jones turned to her mother’s clothes. Jones has also borrowed her husband’s glasses and used her own jewelry to perfect the looks of the black icons, and she bought two wigs and a few hats. Most of the photos were taken on Jones’ cellphone, but her friend, photographer Kayleigh Stefanko, took some to contribute to the project, too.

Jones said her daughter has been having fun dressing up and posing for the photos. 

“She likes to get into costume, do hair and sometimes makeup, and in her words, ‘make their faces,’” she said. 

Lola has especially enjoyed channeling Josephine Baker, Rosa Parks and Misty Copeland. When she dressed as Bessie Coleman, America’s first black female pilot, she didn’t want to take off her aviator hat.

Jones’ favorite woman Lola has transformed into has been civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.

“Showing Lola her photo, and watching her expression transform before me, was almost unnerving,” she said. “She had an innate ability to channel the emotion of the women in the original photos.” 

Throughout the project, Jones set out to empower her daughter and show her “strong, positive role models.” This photo series, though, is merely one way she has taught Lola about black history and the people who influenced it.

“We watch videos and movies, read stories, and talk about the contributions and struggles of those who came before us,” she said.

See more side-by-side photos of Lola and black icons below.

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 H/T The Daily Dot

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Oscar Winners Behind 'Moonlight' Explain What Makes It So Special

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On Sunday night, “Moonlight” won the Oscar for “Best Picture” in what’s easily the most memorable moment in the award show’s history.

First, the presumed winner for that category, “La La Land,” erroneously “won.” Then the Academy slowly informed the room that there had been a mistake and “Moonlight” had actually earned the award. In what remains an internal mystery, presenters for this final and most prestigious award, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, walked onstage with the wrong card to reveal the winner.

Despite this turmoil, “Moonlight” deservedly came out on top. In an aggregate for the movies critics thought were the best in 2016, “Moonlight” was solidly in first place. The movie also got at 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

So how did the people behind “Moonlight” make such a widely-beloved movie?

In large part, the key was authenticity, which is often the case with great art.

As various creators of “Moonlight” describe in the above exclusive video provided to The Huffington Post, much care was devoted to basing this movie on reality from start to finish.

Co-screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney based the story largely on his early life in Miami, while director and co-screenwriter Barry Jenkins came from a similar situation in Miami. Then, the creators chose to integrate the city deeply into the movie.

“Tarell’s writing just described Miami in a way that I hadn’t seen described before,” Jenkins said at the beginning of the clip. “It was personal.”

In the clip, producer Adele Romanski further expanded on what Jenkins brought to the job. “It’s where he grew up,” said Romanski. “We were filming on blocks that he used to live on.”

Jenkins apparently wanted much of the supporting cast to be from Miami and had a desire to make sure his crew was truly knowledgeable about the area, as well. “He’d share some of his experiences with the crew,” explained Romanski, to help ground the people working on the movie and help them connect with the neighborhood.

In a bit longer explanation, Jenkins said:

There’s so many biographical elements in this movie. The only way I could see them being represented in their most authentic form was to place them against the backdrop that inspired them, which was Miami. 

“Moonlight” is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Tuesday.

Here’s the trailer:

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Charles Barkley: 'We Shouldn't Have Just 3 Good Teams'

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Charles Barkley is famously outspoken, so when we got the chance to hear his thoughts on the current state of basketball, we had to take it. One of the hosts of the Emmy Award-winning “NBA on TNT,” Barkley ― who captured league MVP honors in 1993, earned 11 All-Star appearances and is a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee ― spoke with The Huffington Post recently to discuss Cleveland’s struggles, why the race for the championship is only between three teams and what is wrong with today’s NBA.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You teamed up with Autotrader and Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans. Why have you made it a priority to help those in need? 

It’s interesting ― the greatest country in the world, we shouldn’t have people starving. We shouldn’t have young people not getting something to eat. 

You seem to have very much targeted kids in dire need. 

Kids are born into the situation they’re born into, and obviously they have no control over that. And we, as adults, it’s up to us to take care of kids ― that’s part of your moral responsibility. I always tell people, “There’s two groups we should take care of ― old people and young people.” And this is just my small little way of helping.

You recently attended All-Star Weekend in New Orleans. You’re 54 now. Does it maintain the same appeal, the same mystique for you it once did? 

It’s not the same for me now, because, I mean, we work so much. We’re on every day for hours and hours. The All-Star Game was fun when I played in it because it was an amazing weekend, but it’s a little bit different now that I’m doing television, because man, it’s hectic.  

What is the bigger first-half NBA surprise to you: the Spurs’ success or the Cavs’ struggles?

What [the Spurs have] done the last 20 years has just been amazing. Obviously they’ve won five championships, but to be competitive every year, it says a lot. Listen, I don’t think the Cavaliers have struggled as much as people think ― I think the Cavaliers have been bored, because they realized they’re going to win the Eastern Conference unless somebody [made] a trade. So I think they’ve just been bored more than anything.

Are we merely staring down at a three-horse race for the title, between Golden State, San Antonio and Cleveland? 

Yeah, I think that’s very safe to say, and that’s one thing that bothers me about the NBA today. We shouldn’t have just three good teams ― that drives me nuts. And then people tell me [that when I played], “the same team always won the championship.” Well I say, first of all, that’s not true. The Bulls won, the Spurs won, the Pistons won, the Lakers won. But they were all pushed.

Like, we know the Cavaliers are going to be in the finals ― I mean, they don’t even get pushed. Even Michael [Jordan’s] Bulls, remember ― people forget they had some great seven-game series with the Knicks, they had some great seven-game series with the Pacers. They were always pushed. It wasn’t like, “Well, they’re gonna get to the finals.” There were a couple times even when the Bulls won the championship, they had some knock-down, drag-out games with the Knicks and the Pacers. It wasn’t just like a cakewalk like it is now. 

Just how impressive is Houston with James Harden and Mike D’Antoni?

Yes, I think everybody is [surprised], but it goes to the genius of Mike D’Antoni and the great work that James Harden has done. I don’t think anybody thought that the Rockets would be playing this well, but Mike D’Antoni is doing the same thing he did in Phoenix ― he’s just an offensive genius, plain and simple.

Should D’Antoni then be Coach of the Year and Harden the league MVP? 

Well, I think simply Harden and [Russell] Westbrook are the two front-runners for MVP. I think you have to pick your poison on that one. They both look great. And D’Antoni is clearly the front-runner, and now who’s probably gaining on Mike D’Antoni is Scott Brooks ― he’s doing a fantastic job in Washington.

Speaking of the Wizards, what changed for that team? They were a lifeless 2-8 ― dead in the water ― at the beginning of the season.

Well, [John] Wall said he got in shape. People forget he had knee surgery on both knees and it took him a while to get into shape. But if you actually looked at it on paper, I think the Wizards probably have the most talent that can compete with the Cavaliers. They played probably the best NBA game I’ve seen in years. But if you look at it, they’re probably the second best guard combination in the NBA.

Listen, Otto Porter is playing out of his mind, [Markieff] Morris is playing out of his mind. I worry about their depth, but if you look at it from just a talent standpoint, the Wizards probably have the second best team in the Eastern Conference.

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Email me at jordan.schultz@huffingtonpost.com, ask me questions about anything sports-related on Twitter at @Schultz_Report, and follow me on Instagram at @Schultz_Report

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Source: HuffPost Black Voices