Does it bother you that NBA Champions is referred as 'World Champions"?

[Winsome Gerbil]

So, most of the times in every other league, MVPs and champions are foreigners, doesnt make them world champions of any kind, calling yourself world champion for winning a national league is just technically incorrect, the worst kind of incorrect.

In terms of sports, what does 'nation' even mean here?

If you build a group of teams with the absolute best players from around the world with by far the biggest and best budget...why does location of where the games are played factor into anything?

No one is arguing that NBA has strongets teams or that NBA champion isnt a strongest team, but to be world champions, you need to beat opponents and representatives from the entire world, NBA is not world championship, so their champions arent world champions and thats facs.

That's formalism, not to mention just sour grapes.

Franchises aren't relevant. Certainly not Euro-style "clubs". Players are relevant. And you might have 90 of the top 100 in one league. You might have 100 of 100, I don't know. And no you don't have to beat the Chinese league champs, the Eskimo league champs, or the SW Tasmania girls JV team to know you're better and are the world champs. That's like saying the Gypsy King isn't the heavyweight world champ because he hasn't beaten up every tough guy in every divebar across the world. Everybody's got their own little molehill. Unlike Euro teams, however, there is absolutely no excuse why anybody good enough can't come play in the NBA. Its the only truly international league in basketball. No restrictions, no artificial limits based on little imaginary lines on a map drawn by humans. What is a world league if not a league of all the world's best players?

[Romeiro Celtic]

Baseball isn't very popular in Europe or Africa but it's played pretty much everywhere else in the world. It's very popular in east Asia and central and south America. If you want to say a global sport has to be popular everywhere in the world... then there's only one truly global sport.

Baseball is popular only in Venezuela and some parts of Colombia, everywhere else is basically football (soccer for you guys). Basketball is much more popular here.

Dominican republic and cuba are huge baseball countries, bigger than those two. It's also pretty popular as I understand it in Panama.

But they're not located in South America, they're Central America countries.

[TheDavinciCHODE]

dude, get a job or a girlfriend.

Seriously mate that it offend you so much that someone has a difference in opinion. Look at the title of the thread, it asked if we are bothered by the NBA winners being called World champions. So for me I don't agree with it for the reasons I have outlined. And others agree and that's totally fine as well. It's the exact same reason why I thought world series of baseball is also stupid when they are all North American teams. Its not a world series it's an American series. I hope one day you can accept difference of opinion as its kinda refreshing to have different views on subjects like this

It's OP's second foray into this subject...DavinciCHODE is onto something

I just think if you have this much free time that you sit around getting angry about what the champion of each league is called when it has 0 bearing on your life or anyone even remotely close to you's life, that you need something better to do.

It's not about differences of opinion that I don't respect. It's that you are going out of your way to overthink minutia that doesn't matter at all and 0 affect on you, the league, the world, your family, whatever.

Get something better to do.

If you have some constructive discussion about the NBA, sure let's talk. This topic is complete bull.

[TheDavinciCHODE]

Hey guys, I just found out that the Tajikstan national basketball league calls its champions the Central Asian Steppe champions...

However, upon closer review on Google Earth, I noticed that they are in fact northwestern Asia, and not Central Asia. And only about 12% of their land is steppe.

Is this a GROSS AGGRESSION TO WORLD PEACE?

SHOULD WE PETITION THEM TO CHANGE THIS NAME??!

I AM BEING ABUSED!!!!!!!

[mowcrowbar]

No one is doubting that the NBA champion is the best team in the world (or at least they shouldn't), but the NBA championship is not a global league, and calling it that is just plain arrogant.

[benson13]

Guess we're done calling the winners of March Madness the "national champions" then. There are other teams in this country they didn't play.

[threethehardway]

No one is doubting that the NBA champion is the best team in the world (or at least they shouldn't), but the NBA championship is not a global league, and calling it that is just plain arrogant.

How is the NBA not a global league when it has the best players from around the world, which makes it the best league in the world.

The NBA is a global league, is based in the USA.

[The Moose]

Doesn't bother me, but its pretty funny every time I hear/see it.
Seems pretty clear that they shouldn't be called the 'world' champions on the basis of it making no logical sense but if it makes them feel better, its up to them.

[Winsome Gerbil]

No one is doubting that the NBA champion is the best team in the world (or at least they shouldn't), but the NBA championship is not a global league, and calling it that is just plain arrogant.

The NBA championship is ABSOLUTELY a global league. The odds are extremely high its got your country's best player playing in it right now, unless your country's best player is not good enough to make the NBA.

Being a global league isn't about where the FRANCHISES sit. Franchises are just legal constructions. Artificial entities that can be made to exist or not exist at a stroke of a pen.

It makes no sense to say oh, the NBA is not a global league, but if the exact same franchises with the exact same players were now distributed out to 30 world capitals, NOW it would be a global league.

[dhsilv2]

The title of this thread is 'world' champions not 'European' champions hence why I used another country in the world. I could have used Cuba or any other South American country. The point still stands that to call yourselves world champions when there is no world competition is just arrogant. Soccer/football is probably the closest we get to a world champion but even then for club sides its still really only European or Asian or concaf champion.

And yes I get what you are saying and you were right probably shouldn't have quoted yours for my example so sorry about that.

Reading all these just shows the arrogance and ignorance of the Americans. For example baseball is massive is Japan but your whole world only revolves around good ol 'Merica that is all you know. Ice Hockey is massive in Europe and so is basketball. Look at the Olympics, if you took KD out of that team then the gold would have gone to Lithuania or Spain or Australia or who knows. That's because basketball exists in these countries and its normally a decent standard. To call yourselves "World Champions" is just laughable

There is almost no chance any poster here, and certainly not an american one isn't aware of the popularity of baseball in Japan. So unless you think Japan is in Europe...that seems like an unneeded comment to lead with.

I always giggle a bit with the use of "Club" for a professional team. Now again I know zero about soccer but it seems there isn't a TRUE NBA equivalent for the NBA in soccer. 80-90% of the best basketball player on the planet are in the NBA which is a global organization. It's not an american league, due to logicists you can't have a season with teams playing outside the time zones the league is in. And you can't have a playoff of teams who don't play in the league's regular season either. None the less the nba is without a doubt the world championships. It's crazy to me we still paints these national boarders are being meaningful at this level of sports.

[dhsilv2]

and to make a broader point, likewise MLB, NHL and NFL champions are usually called World Champions for the reason that they are clearly stringest leagues for those specific sports and have the best athletes in those leagues than any other domestic league of that sport.

But, it's ignorant and arrogant imo calling world champions simply because it's a domestic competition (In some cases, USA+Canada) so no other country is taking part. So, calling it World Champions when there are dozens of leagues of thosr sports out there not even taking part is simply delusional.

I don't even care if there were only 2 countries in the world. New Zealand and let's say rest of the world was called "USA", it would still be narrow minded to call World Champions unless they face a champion team from New Zealand every season.

What does the country have to do with any of this? The NBA is an international league that just so happens to be played in two countries. Location of where teams play has nothing to do with anything. The league is made up of the best players from around the world.

Having the best players in the world, make it the greatest national league, doesnt matter if you are the undisputed best team on paper, if you dont beat teams from other continents that previously won continental leagues, than you arent world champion. Pretty simples. My Brazil national team was the greatest undisputed for quite a long period, still we needed to play against the lesser teams in south america to classify to the world cup

The nba isn't a national league. It's a global organization that plays games in the US due to logistics. If you're in the world and you want to play basketball, the NBA is the league you play in. If you don't make the nba, you just didn't really make it. It's nice that there are lower leagues and fans to support them, but in the world of basketball it's just not relevant.

[dhsilv2]

Baseball is popular only in Venezuela and some parts of Colombia, everywhere else is basically football (soccer for you guys). Basketball is much more popular here.

Dominican republic and cuba are huge baseball countries, bigger than those two. It's also pretty popular as I understand it in Panama.

But they're not located in South America, they're Central America countries.

I'm aware of this. The person you quoted said.

It's very popular in east Asia and central and south America.

[dhsilv2]

No one is doubting that the NBA champion is the best team in the world (or at least they shouldn't), but the NBA championship is not a global league, and calling it that is just plain arrogant.

But it is 100% a global league. Just because they don't play games all over the world doesn't make it not a global league. And for a while the league was trying to play games outside the states. It's just been difficult to do with travel logistics.

[Koreandoo]

No one calls the football champions league winner world champ, even tho probably the best player in your country plays here and everyone knows this team is the best team in the world, like the nba champion.

[mowcrowbar]

No one is doubting that the NBA champion is the best team in the world (or at least they shouldn't), but the NBA championship is not a global league, and calling it that is just plain arrogant.

But it is 100% a global league. Just because they don't play games all over the world doesn't make it not a global league. And for a while the league was trying to play games outside the states. It's just been difficult to do with travel logistics.

It's not a global league because there are other leagues in the world that are not included. Sure the NBA has a global presence, but it doesn't involve any other leagues like the CBA, Euroleague, etc... In soccer (football) each nation has a league and winners from that league is represented in something called a "Champions League" - a mix of teams from different nations. The winner from that league is called the Asian champions or European champions, etc...

[BoatsNZones]

You guys do realize the NBA championship is not officially called the world championship, yes?

The "World Series" is the only distinction the USA holds in this manner. And in both cases the winner would beat the other best team in the world in 10/10 series since it's inception (and holds 99% of the best players world-wide in their given sport), so no we don't care. It would seemingly sound more obtuse to call it the "USA/CANADA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP!" with so many foreign players involved.

[Tracymcgoaty]

I got a question though. Could the best current European team beat the worst NBA team?

[dhsilv2]

No one is doubting that the NBA champion is the best team in the world (or at least they shouldn't), but the NBA championship is not a global league, and calling it that is just plain arrogant.

But it is 100% a global league. Just because they don't play games all over the world doesn't make it not a global league. And for a while the league was trying to play games outside the states. It's just been difficult to do with travel logistics.

It's not a global league because there are other leagues in the world that are not included. Sure the NBA has a global presence, but it doesn't involve any other leagues like the CBA, Euroleague, etc... In soccer (football) each nation has a league and winners from that league is represented in something called a "Champions League" - a mix of teams from different nations. The winner from that league is called the Asian champions or European champions, etc...

Why would they include other leagues? The NBA is a global organization that puts the best players into their company. It would make no sense to "include" other leagues...the idea is to create a truly global LEAGUE.

[God Squad]

ahhh another unsubtle thread bashing America. You guys not tired of this yet?

Muricans bitching about people bashing their country LOL! If that isn't the pinnacle of hypocrisy I don't know what is.

Besides, nothing wrong with bashing world's #1 terrorist nation.

The last comment is a clear attempt at derailing the conversation. Please refrain from doing that.
-Harry

Daaaaamn tell us how you really feel.

Jeeebus.. smh

[Modulate]

Oh of course it bothers me.

Every day I wake up, check the internet and realize that there are times where NBA Champions are referred to as "World Champions". And I start punching the air.

(How dare they! I mutter as I make my kids shytty angry pancakes)