Gold Medalist Questions the NBA Champs Being Deemed "World" Champs

[JonFromVA]

Pop agrees

I wonder when he had his epiphany, though, because every picture of the 2003 Spurs championship ring I can find says "World Championship" and the 2005 ring seems to say it on the side.

Or perhaps his opinion doesn't carry as much weight in the Spurs organization as I think it does when it pertains to matters of marketing?

[the sea duck]

The Ignite alone had four guys get drafted how many NBL guys? You’re also making the broader point here about how desirable it is to get into the NBA system.

Last year the NBL had 4 guys drafted and G-League had 3.

We’re deviating from the point anyway. The fact is, unless the NBA champ of that season wins a tournament against champions of other leagues, they can’t be called World champs. Sure they’ll be favourites but as we know, favourites don’t always win otherwise what’s the point of playing.

I would absolutely hate it if the AFL in Australia called our grand final winners the “world champs” even though no one else would even come close to beating them.

There’s a big world outside of the US you know.

The point I think folks are trying to get across is that this isn’t about the US,

I think you're right. People still equate NBA with the US because the league plays in the US (and started as a US league). It is an international league that plays its games in the US. It is a world champion league. Once upon a time, it didn't matter that it was a US league because they still were the best in the world during that time. Now that the league is international, it still has the best in the world via pulling the best from throughout the world. Thank David Stern for the transformation that solidified the league's place in the world and preserved the nba champs as world champs.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Pop agrees

I wonder when he had his epiphany, though, because every picture of the 2003 Spurs championship ring I can find says "World Championship" and the 2005 ring seems to say it on the side.

Or perhaps his opinion doesn't carry as much weight in the Spurs organization as I think it does when it pertains to matters of marketing?

I love Pop and I think he was trying to make a good point that’s also getting made in this thread about not ignoring basketball outside the US. His comments were from 2010. Even since then the NBA has become so much more international. Not to say I think he has changed his mind or anything but the landscape is different. Pop is also somewhat self interested there I think in trying to look good with European players because especially at the time in 2010 the Spurs were just lapping everyone in scouting Euro talent.

[JonFromVA]

Honestly I don't know why the NBA and FIBA don't use this opportunity to have a pre season exhibition with Euroleague winners much like they did for football between the CL winner and Copa Libertadores winner in years past

even if they do that, none of those clubs would be a world champion. only national teams can bear the tag "world champion", not clubs!

Have you guys worked out all the rules yet, or are we just going to accept what FIBA does because they're FIBA?

After all, it's just a snap of some bureaucrat's fingers and an African American from Georgia who last played pro ball in Russia and signed with Israel can become the starting PG for the Spanish National Team and a "World Champion".

[iserp]

For me a World Championship is something very simple. Everyone gets ther best players and tries their best to win.

A league is way different, more complicated: there are salaries, cap rules, trades, ... some teams are trying to win, some teams are trying to lose, there are rules to set up certain balance. It is not bad by any means, and the product is good, but it leans more on the entertainment side, while a world championship is all about the competitive side.

I will not get mad if someone calls a NBA champion to be a "world champion", but for me it is not.

[JShuttlesworth]

A lot of people getting super defensive and seem to be forgetting what the N in NBA stands for

[Evenacus]

They are a professional sports FRANCHISE!

This is VERY important when talking about why the NBA champions are the world champions. It is a closed league. If you're a team outside of it or a player outside. You don't matter! This assures that the overwhelming majority of talent will go to the NBA. It assures that NBA franchises will generate the most possible money to support paying and bringing in global talent.

That is what this silly "club" title you're talking about doesn't matter. That's a tournament for people not good enough to be in the NBA. If you're not on a franchised team with the NBA, your professional team well don't just don't matter. And it's a real shame Soccer hasn't taken this model up. It would greatly improve the product.

Around the world, and in the USA, pro sports franchises are very commonly called sports clubs. This is absolute fact.

They aren't. The NBA model is very clear. The term club is not used in the US, but more importantly the NBA model and the professional model used in europe are night and day different. Calling a professional team a "club"... just sounds idiotic. Clubs are groups where people get together to go drink and have fun. They aren't professional organizations. A franchise is a VERY specific legal term. Now you've made it clear you don't know what legal means in this thread. I get that. So I"m here to correct you.

Florentino Perez and the bunch must be drunk as f**k everyday. CLUB de futbol REAL MADRID, that must be one hell of a party where the members drink and have fun. It obviously doesn't sound idiotic and is a common practice around the World for teams to have a word CLUB in their name.

[JonFromVA]

Man the offseason sucks when folks are willing to fight tooth and nail over something like this.

For those wanting to nitpick this: If you had to dub the team most likely to be the best team in the world in the absence of a club-level tournament spanning all of the leagues in existence who would you choose? Oh right. It's the NBA champion....

Not just that, but everyone knows it's a term that's used pretty much as a hyperbolic over the top marketing gimmick. There is no official coronation as a "World Champion" done by anyone other than printing the words on banners/rings/shirts/etc.

Yet it really makes people upset for some reason.

I think we know the reason (give or take those who feel they are making a semantic argument).

[the sea duck]

A lot of people getting super defensive and seem to be forgetting what the N in NBA stands for

And the nba could change their name to world basketball association and the same would apply. It would be the same teams and players playing.

Is the nba the only major basketball league that doesn't restrict players based on their origins? The nba could have 100% non-American players according to the rules. I know many other leagues restrict how many Americans can be on the team. Any such league cannot be a world champion league.

[JShuttlesworth]

A lot of people getting super defensive and seem to be forgetting what the N in NBA stands for

And the nba could change their name to world basketball association and the same would apply. It would be the same teams and players playing.

Is the nba the only major basketball league that doesn't restrict players based on their origins? The nba could have 100% non-American players according to the rules. I know many other leagues restrict how many Americans can be on the team. Any such league cannot be a world champion league.

They aren't world champs, champ.

[Mirotic12]

So, which team outside of the NBA beats the G-League Ignite in a 7 game series? The answer is:

Every EuroLeague team
The top teams from South America
Low-seeded playoff teams from the ACB
The top teams from the Basketball Champions League
Possibly a couple of teams from the EuroCup level

And probably a good number of above average teams in a number of other leagues

The fact that Wemby's team split their series with the Ignite is telling. The team that Wemby was on was NOT a particularly good team. Yes, they made the LNB Finals while beating some good teams along the way but that was primarily because Wemby and especially Bilal overachieved and kept improving as the season went on. But the team itself, Metropolitans 92, isn't all that notable. They are a mid-level team in the LNB and an above average team at the EuroCup level. The fact that the Ignite couldn't even beat that team says all that needs to be said.

So, to give a definitive answer to your question:

There are A LOT of teams outside of the NBA that would beat the G-League Ignite in a 7 game series. If you want a hard number, I'd say that this number is somewhere between 30 and 40 teams.

The G-League Ignite is NOT a good team. It is a team that has some amazing players that will grow into superstars but it is not an actual team. It is NOT built to actually win games. And that's fine since that's not their role. So, yeah, your argument was and still remains absolutely ridiculous.

Edit: I actually completely forgot about the NBL there. Thanks to AussieCeltic for reminding me. I'm raising the number to 40-45 teams.

I think it's like every EuroLeague team, every NBL team, every EuroCup team, every FIBA BCL regular season group stage team, and probably any good team from BCL Americas would beat the G-League Ignite in a 7 game series.

I mean they split a 2 game series with Metropolitan, playing with NBA rules, and with the Mets having traveled all the way to the USA...and the Mets might not be able to even win a single game in something like the EuroLeague. They got destroyed by Monaco in the LNB finals (French League finals), and the only reason they were able to just BARELY beat ASVEL in the semifinals, was because Lauvergn and De Colo didn't play.

And ASVEL was clearly the worst team in the EuroLeague. So they just barely beat the worst EuroLeague team, that was missing its two best players, and then they got destroyed by a good EuroLeague team in the finals. It's very doubtful that the Mets or the G-League Ignite could even win a game in the EuroLeague.

And also don't forget about European domestic league teams that don't play in European wide leagues. You can scan through the rosters of teams in the Italian League, Greek League, Spanish League at various times, and often times for example, like the 10th best teams in the league will have like 4 or 5 former NBA players on their rosters.......and then 3-4 good domestic players that are grown men. Even those kinds of teams have 7 or 8 players that clearly make stronger rosters than anything in the G-League.

It's way more than 40-45 teams.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

The NBA champion can be considered the NBA World Champion
Sounds dumb but I am ok with it.
For sure it's not the Basketball World Champion as you need to actually compete in open format for that.

[JonFromVA]

For me a World Championship is something very simple. Everyone gets ther best players and tries their best to win.

A league is way different, more complicated: there are salaries, cap rules, trades, ... some teams are trying to win, some teams are trying to lose, there are rules to set up certain balance. It is not bad by any means, and the product is good, but it leans more on the entertainment side, while a world championship is all about the competitive side.

I will not get mad if someone calls a NBA champion to be a "world champion", but for me it is not.

It's not that simple with FIBA.

Everyone doesn't get their best players, not everyone tries to win, there are motivations beyond national pride or competition, there is cheating and abuse of the rules to try to get an edge, there's a lot of money involved that in some cases finds its way to the athletes, while most are simple exploited because they've been told they are doing something bigger than making money for others, etc, etc.

[dhsilv2]

Around the world, and in the USA, pro sports franchises are very commonly called sports clubs. This is absolute fact.

They aren't. The NBA model is very clear. The term club is not used in the US, but more importantly the NBA model and the professional model used in europe are night and day different. Calling a professional team a "club"... just sounds idiotic. Clubs are groups where people get together to go drink and have fun. They aren't professional organizations. A franchise is a VERY specific legal term. Now you've made it clear you don't know what legal means in this thread. I get that. So I"m here to correct you.

Florentino Perez and the bunch must be drunk as f**k everyday. CLUB de futbol REAL MADRID, that must be one hell of a party where the members drink and have fun. It obviously doesn't sound idiotic and is a common practice around the World for teams to have a word CLUB in their name.

I can't speak for that organization but the roots of a lot of these european "clubs" were that they were clubs originally! And look, that model is perfectly fine. I believe baseball in the states also had those roots with the original organizations, though certainly not with newer teams added after the fact, those are just classic franchises. But the term club is very broad and overwhelmingly is a social group!

The NBA is however a legit business with a true franchise model and that's how it runs. The roots aren't social clubs.

[Harry Garris]

The NBA champion can be considered the NBA World Champion
Sounds dumb but I am ok with it.
For sure it's not the Basketball World Champion as you need to actually compete in open format for that.

A true open format is not logistically possible. Also it just isn't necessary because all of the best teams would be NBA teams anyway no matter how many different international leagues they played against.

But since the NBA happens to employ the vast majority of the top 450 basketball players in the world, including all of the guys who are a "superstar" level talent, I would say the NBA playoffs are already doing a good job of determining who the best in the world is.

[JonFromVA]

I think it's like every EuroLeague team, every NBL team, every EuroCup team, every FIBA BCL regular season group stage team, and probably any good team from BCL Americas would beat the G-League Ignite in a 7 game series.

I mean they split a 2 game series with Metropolitan, playing with NBA rules, and with the Mets having traveled all the ay to the USA...and the Mets might not be able to even win a single game in something like the EuroLeague. They got destroyed by Monaco in the LBN finals, and the only reason they were able to just BARELY beat ASVEL in the semifinals, was because Lauvergn and De Colo didn't play.

And ASVEL was clearly the worst team in the EuroLeague. So they just barely beat the worst EuroLeague team, that was missing its two best players, and then they got destroyed by a good EuroLeague team in the finals. It's very doubtful that the Mets or the G-League Ignite could even win a game in the EuroLeague.

And if the Delaware Blue Coats were running around calling themselves the World Champions of secondary basketball leagues, we'd all be laughing at them.

[the sea duck]

A lot of people getting super defensive and seem to be forgetting what the N in NBA stands for

And the nba could change their name to world basketball association and the same would apply. It would be the same teams and players playing.

Is the nba the only major basketball league that doesn't restrict players based on their origins? The nba could have 100% non-American players according to the rules. I know many other leagues restrict how many Americans can be on the team. Any such league cannot be a world champion league.

They aren't world champs, champ.

based on the letters in their name.

[Mirotic12]

Basketball is a sport with a global reach (not as global as association football but pretty global overall). There are a lot of good basketball teams outside the US. Only a couple of them can compete with the NBA since the NBA is the best basketball league by a very, very significant margin but when it comes to other levels of basketball in the US like the G-League and the NCAA then, yeah, it's not that special. Lots of teams outside the US are better than that. Significantly so.

It's a lot more than a couple of teams from Europe that can compete with NBA teams. Freaking Alba Berlin, yes, Alba Berlin beat the Spurs, with Duncan, Manu, and Parker, and with the game being played under NBA rules.

I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure that Alba Berlin has never even made it to the EuroLeague playoffs, and most of the times they finish the season with a losing record.

Watch on YouTube

[Harry Garris]

Basketball is a sport with a global reach (not as global as association football but pretty global overall). There are a lot of good basketball teams outside the US. Only a couple of them can compete with the NBA since the NBA is the best basketball league by a very, very significant margin but when it comes to other levels of basketball in the US like the G-League and the NCAA then, yeah, it's not that special. Lots of teams outside the US are better than that. Significantly so.

It's a lot more than a couple of teams from Europe that can compete with NBA teams. Freaking Alba Berlin, yes, Alba Berlin beat the Spurs....

Watch on YouTube

That was an impressive win. I do think that if these teams regularly played and scouted and gameplanned for each other though the greater talent would win out. I mean there's no doubt that Euroleague teams are highly skilled and well coached. Although... they are at a pretty big deficit in the physical talent department. It's really, really hard to compete with a team that's just as skilled as you are, but are also bigger, more athletic, faster, stronger, etc. I think the skill gap has closed significantly over the past couple of decades but the athleticism gap is still massive between NBA and Europe.

[dhsilv2]

The NBA champion can be considered the NBA World Champion
Sounds dumb but I am ok with it.
For sure it's not the Basketball World Champion as you need to actually compete in open format for that.

What's not "open" about the NBA format? The only real restriction to compete is to enter the draft. Individuals have the least restrictions in the NBA than any other team setting I can think of. Now obviously we have a fixed number of TEAMS, but that's a critical element of why the NBA's product is of the highest quality and it can demand the top talent and pay for it.

But the foundation of any sports event needs to be the freedom of the individual first and foremost. Next the team would need to be able to build the best possible roster from the top talent.

Now the NBA is by no means a perfect system here, but it's the best we have. From there, I can see that by fixing the number of teams it limits new owners. But I don't see where this is a significant problem. How many people need to be able to profit to reach the needed goals? Again the NBA isn't perfect, but it has the goal to maximize profits and to do that it has to create the best product. And I think those goals seem to be working pretty well together to give us what we want for a proper best sports league.