Die Allianz T-D-P » Muhammed Alis legacy is a great example of how

The Phoenix Suns are one of the youngest and least experienced teams in the NBA. Three of their first four opponents are among the top five teams in the Western Conference. Those are facts. But to at least one member of the Suns, there still is no excuse for losing.We cant keep saying schedule or age, guard Brandon Knight said of the Suns 0-4 start. At some point, we just have to do what were supposed to do and the wins will come. You have to be consistent and continue to be positive, and it will fall in place.Phoenix will be gunning for its first victory of the season Wednesday night when it plays host to the Portland Trail Blazers (2-2) at Talking Stick Resort Arena. The Suns are 0-4 for the first time since 1996, when they lost their first 13 games on the way to a 40-42 season. They are averaging a league-high 29.3 fouls per game.A lot of our games have been dictated by foul calls, Phoenix guard Eric Bledsoe said. We have to stop fouling so much.On Monday, the Suns got drilled 116-98 by the Los Angeles Clippers in a game in which they had 20 turnovers, 11 of them in the second quarter.Thats a lack of focus, Suns coach Earl Watson said. We cant let foul calls disrupt our rhythm mentally. We have to weather the storm and be mentally tough and play through that.The Suns hope to regain the services of guard Devin Booker, who missed the Monday game with a sprained toe.They will have the advantage of facing Portland with the Blazers on the second of back-to-back nights after a 127-104 loss to the Golden State Warriors in Oregon. Blazers guard Damian Lillard said the lopsided defeat should serve as incentive to play well.We should be excited about the opportunity to get back out there (Wednesday night) after the type of game we had tonight, said Lillard, who scored a game-high 31 points against Golden State.The Warriors broke open a tight game by outscoring the Blazers 41-20 in the third quarter. Portland made only 7 of 30 shots from 3-point range until Jake Layman and Noah Vonleh combined to sink 7 of 9 in the closing minutes of garbage time.You have nights like that, Lillard said after the game. The third quarter, we slipped up. We didnt communicate as well as we did the first half. We allowed (the Warriors) to get clean looks, and they got it going.When we arent making shots and they are, we have to be able to do the small things. Limit them to one possession, help each other out on off-ball screens, protect the paint, have a tighter shell on the weak side. We have to make it harder for them to make shots as well. Tonight, we didnt do that.Layman, a rookie out of Maryland, finished with 17 points in eight minutes Tuesday in his NBA debut. Charley Taylor Redskins Jersey . Brandon Morrow allowed five runs on six hits over three innings. He struck out two, walked one and hit a batter. Edwin Encarnacion had a two-out, bases loaded two-RBI double in the third inning. Wes Martin Youth Jersey .Y. -- Jayna Hefford scored the winning goal Friday as Canada survived a scare with a 4-3 win over Sweden at the Four Nations womens hockey tournament. https://www.redskinssportsgoods.com/Womens-Derrius-Guice-Inverted-Jersey/ . "I wrote 36 on my sheet at the beginning of the game," the Cincinnati coach said, referring the yard line the ball would need to be snapped from. DaRon Payne Jersey . The return match will take place next Wednesday. Udinese leads Fiorentina 2-1 in the other semifinal. Napoli staged a second-half comeback from two goals down after Gervinhos opener and a stunning strike from Kevin Strootman. Dwayne Haskins Jersey . Speaking to the Chicago Tribune at baseballs Winter Meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Boras called the former home of the Expos a "tremendous environment" for baseball. Athletes today are using their platforms as sports celebrities to bring attention to the violence that has erupted across the country and recently Carmelo Anthony has been one of the most outspoken.The New York Knicks All-Star is taking a break from his preparation with the Olympic basketball team Monday to host a meeting in Los Angeles with athletes, politicians and people in the community to advance the conversation about what hes called a broken system.University of California-Berkeley professor emeritus Dr. Harry Edwards said todays athletes have a level of power that Muhammed Ali and others didnt have in the 1960s, and they have begun using it to speak out against violence both by and against police.How much change they can effect remains to be seen, as Ali changed the world.The newfound power of todays athlete comes from monetary wealth, celebrity status and having the vehicle of social media to communicate directly with the masses. They can reach hordes of people, encouraging them to get involved in social change.Joe Louis and Jack Johnson and Jesse Owens struggled for legitimacy, Edwards said. Then you began this struggle for access. Which is what Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby and Kenny Washington and all those guys were involved in. In the 1960s, the struggle was for respect and dignity.Now the struggle is for power. And these men have power. So they have a different forum than we had in the late 1960s to be able to go on network television and make a statement concerning violence and the killing of black men, women and children in this country. ... Thats an exercise of power. They have the capability today that we only dreamed about in the 1960s when only one or two athletes even had endorsements.Anthony, LeBron James, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade gave an anti-violence speech at the ESPYS and expressed their support of the values behind the Black Lives Matter movement. University of Missouri football players threatened to boycott games last year in support of student groups protesting the schools racial environment. School President Timothy Wolfe eventually retired. Serena Williams spoke out against the violence at Wimbledon. Members of the WNBAs Indiana Fever, New York Liberty and Phoenix Mercury recently wore black warm up shirts in the wake of recent shootings by and against police officers, and were fined by the league.The league rescinded the fines after a public backlash.Anthonys meeting in Los Angeles coincides with the latest stop on the Olympic mens team exhibition schedule as the Americans prepare for the Rio Games.It is nearly economically impossible to ignore todays athletes as the power they wield reaches farther than their own bank accounts.James is literally worth millions of dollars to the Cleveland economy as the success of the Cavaliers motivates thousands of people to spend. Cavs attendance ranked No. 2 in the league in 2009-10 and the last two seasons, but dipped as low as No. 22 during James four years in Miami.Their influence goes beyond promoting merchandise and ticket sales.Edwards said sports have become a religion in this country and around the world, giving athletes more influence tthan in the past.dddddddddddd He believes as walking corporations they carry more weight than the doctor up the street or the lawyer around the corner or even the community organizer.Sports in modern societies really amount to secular religions, Edwards said. Athletes have a phenomenal megaphone. ... So that obligation to speak up, especially in regards to the African-American outcomes and interests, is critical.Social media allows athletes to directly communicate with millions of fans and followers with a few keystrokes and encourage action. Edwards explained ISIS has used it in a similar way to recruit self-radicalized people. The difference is in the message.Dr. Joseph Cooper, assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, said any major social policy -- civil rights movement, feminist movement, passage of Title IX -- began with multiple conversations. But there must be action behind the words.Both Edwards and Cooper said thats the next step in the process.Cooper called for sustained engagement from athletes on whatever level they are comfortable -- from continuing the conversation to meeting with groups like Black Lives Matter, the NAACP and 100 Black Men to identify specific issues and target ways to improve them. Cooper also discussed the need to have benchmarks in which progress can be measured.All these athletes say we care about the Black Lives Matter movement, in a year from now we want to see that youve actually been continuing in championing the support, Cooper said. Muhammed Alis legacy is a great example of how he didnt rest on his laurels in making one decision and saying OK, thats enough.In a concise manner, the steps forward are sustained engagement. What that looks like for each individual athlete and each community will be different. But it definitely involves tangible action, civic responsibility and engagement and accountability measures. The call for accountability has to be followed up with actual consequences if certain things arent done.Edwards pointed to the need for progress on both an individual and collective level. He said trust and respect needs to be built between individuals and police, and both sides need to acknowledge wrongdoing. There are criminals in the community that deserve to be arrested and there are rogue officers that deserve to be held accountable for excessive force.The bottom line of any step is the voting booth.If youre out there marching up and down the street with Black Lives Matter and then dont go to the polls to vote out the mayor of Ferguson, to vote out the sheriff of Milwaukee county or whatever, then ... youre marching into a cul-de-sac, Edwards said. When you march into a cul-de-sac and just come back out angry, youre not a member of a movement because its not going anywhere. Youre a member of a mob.And the difference in a representative democracy between a movement and a mob is whether you follow through with the actions necessary to make the changes that youve been trying to convince people are the correct direction to go. ' ' '