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

[SlovenianDragon]

All the best players from around the world play in the best league in the world...that's the NBA.

World champions.

[msmoore66]

I feel like there are a bunch of different views that are largely all correct from that POV. Ultimately I think the sticking point is those who think a title of a World Champion is designated to International Competition (be it team or individual sport), those are competed by Nations.

Competitions like the NBA, EPL, La Liga, Super Rugby, NRL, hell even the Diamond League are competed by professional teams or individuals, not nations. These leagues can quite rightly lay claim to the best talent/competition level in their sport if they choose, but that doesn't then default to that competition being a World Championship.

I'm sure there will be opposing views, but I think this is a fairly accepted way of looking at it, especially outside the US.

[Sedale Threatt]

No, that's not an excuse. That's explaining to American NBA only fans, that some international teams, especially European ones, have coaches that lose games on purpose, because they think it is a tactical decision for such tournaments. So they will use a game strategy in prep games and maybe even in a group stage that is like playing possum, if they think they can get away with it and still qualify to the next stage of the tournament.

It has nothing to do with being an excuse and it's not even saying that's why Spain lost whatever game to Team USA. It's simply explaining that they intentionally don't coach to win those games as a strategy. That's all.

It doesn't mean Spain would have won that game if the coach wanted to. It just means, they are actually not trying to. That's all. If you can't understand why some coaches believe this is a smart tactic, then you are contradicting yourself, not me. Because the tactic is so that you lull your main rivals, instead of awaken them. So it's actually Spain believing that they need to not win against the USA, so they don't motivate them.

How this is in any way at all a hard concept to grasp? This should be a very simple thing to understand. And it honestly has nothing at all to do with whether Spain would win the game or not, or will win a game if they play each other in the tournament, or will lose if they play each other or whatever.

It's just an explanation of the thinking of the coaches and their thought process strategy. It's sad that stuff like this even has to be explained at all.

Oh, OK, so you're perfectly cool giving us another sanctimonious lecture on the intricacies of European basketball strategy -- which yes, I understand perfectly well even if I don't respect it; it's not rocket science -- and yet you want to tell American fans who have been watching professional sports in this country for years and in many cases decades that their teams actually really DO take preseason games super-duper seriously and not at all like warmups to prepare for the real ones that they don't even take completely seriously either. Lol, get the fck out of here man.

I know you take it extremely personally, as a Euroleague fan, that the overwhelming majority of posters here don't respect or care anything about it. If I was that much of a cloistered homer maybe I would get in my feelings to. But surely there has to be a better place to get your hoops discussion in rather than picking these same dumb-ass fights year after year after year. It's freaking obnoxious and pointless.

[Invictus88]

Im seriously laughing out loud at some of the responses in here. Stubborn, blind nationalism (?) over something as trivial as saying - NBA champs does NOT equal World Champs.
...anyone get triggered from that?

So the interesting thing is that the NBA is such a melting pot. You have players from all over playing. And on a particular team there is no guarantee that the players playing on it have any sort of prior affiliation or ties to that city / area / country where the team is based.

So you have this organization which for argument's sake could be based anywhere. It has players from all over. They play a lot of games against each other; more so than pretty much any other league and meaning it's likely they have the best chance to figure out how to best play with each other as a team. The talent-level of the players in this organization are generally accepted to be the highest on average versus any other league known to exist.

You then have a champion declared for that league. There isn't any other competition between this league's teams and others that has any real competitive or formal stakes; so there's no competition-based solution to see how teams on these disparate leagues stack up against each other.

Is that championship team a good candidate to be considered the best (club?) team in the world?

Note that in the above that this scenario could happen anywhere. The league could be based in Africa or Iceland. In this case it happens to be based in the United States. So I don't know if I would specifically say that proponents of crowning the champions of this league as world's best are specifically being nationalist.

I think those (like me) are actually frustrated by folks who are so vehemently opposed to making this inference (that the champion of this particular league is likely to be the best team in the world at that particular time). The source of the frustration is just that it's an easy and seemingly reasonable conclusion to arrive at based on the available talent and time spent together of the players. Location truly does not matter.

If the circumstances were reversed and the NBA in its current form were based in Europe I would still be drawing the exact same conclusion. I can't help it that that isn't the case.

[Mirotic12]

Oh, OK, so you're perfectly cool giving us another sanctimonious lecture on the intricacies of European basketball strategy -- which yes, I understand perfectly well even if I don't respect it; it's not rocket science -- and yet you want to tell American fans who have been watching professional sports in this country for years and in many cases decades that their teams actually really DO take preseason games super-duper seriously and not at all like warmups to prepare for the real ones that they don't even take completely seriously either. Lol, get the fck out of here man.

I know you take it extremely personally, as a Euroleague fan, that the overwhelming majority of posters here don't respect or care anything about it. If I was that much of a cloistered homer maybe I would get in my feelings to. But surely there has to be a better place to get your hoops discussion in rather than picking these same dumb-ass fights year after year after year. It's freaking obnoxious and pointless.

NBA players are trying to win games against EuroLeague teams. Are you actually really seriously trying to claim here that NBA players are perfectly fine with playing at 50% and letting a EuroLeague team beat them?

NBA players care about those games 10 times more than they care about some random NBA regular season game, and it's absolutely downright comical and ludicrous for anyone to be pretending here that they don't care about those games and are letting EuroLeague teams win, because they are not trying to beat a team from the EuroLeague.

Some of the claims here are just totally absurd and ridiculous.

[Sedale Threatt]

NBA players care about those games 10 times more than they care about some random NBA regular season game...

You are completely out of your mind.

[Invictus88]

Oh, OK, so you're perfectly cool giving us another sanctimonious lecture on the intricacies of European basketball strategy -- which yes, I understand perfectly well even if I don't respect it; it's not rocket science -- and yet you want to tell American fans who have been watching professional sports in this country for years and in many cases decades that their teams actually really DO take preseason games super-duper seriously and not at all like warmups to prepare for the real ones that they don't even take completely seriously either. Lol, get the fck out of here man.

I know you take it extremely personally, as a Euroleague fan, that the overwhelming majority of posters here don't respect or care anything about it. If I was that much of a cloistered homer maybe I would get in my feelings to. But surely there has to be a better place to get your hoops discussion in rather than picking these same dumb-ass fights year after year after year. It's freaking obnoxious and pointless.

NBA players are trying to win games against EuroLeague teams. Are you actually really seriously trying to claim here that NBA players are perfectly fine with playing at 50% and letting a EuroLeague team beat them?

NBA players care about those games 10 times more than they care about some random NBA regular season game, and it's absolutely downright comical and ludicrous for anyone to be pretending here that they don't care about those games and are letting EuroLeague teams win, because they are not trying to beat a team from the EuroLeague.

Some of the claims here are just totally absurd and ridiculous.

So it's a very common scenario for a player to skip playing in international competitions for their team for the sole reason of being ready for the regular season rigors of the NBA. I think that the Olympics are probably the closest to flipping this set of priorities on its head but even then you have folks skipping them in some circumstances to rest up for the next season.

Exhibitions between an NBA team and some other non-league team (including Euroleague teams, etc) fall way below that. And yeah. No NBA player is likely going to lose much sleep if they happen to lose an exhibition game; especially if there aren't really any real monetary stakes involved.

I would like to think that the priorities of EuroLeague players in those games might find it novel to play versus NBA clubs but in the grand scheme of things would prioritize league championships, etc as being more important as well? Am I wrong about this?

Maybe there is the thought of certain EuroLeague players wanting to prove their worth to the NBA teams ? Possibly as a means to justify being considered as being added to an NBA roster in the future?

But the reverse is definitely not a thing.

P.S.
I get what the previous guy is saying. I see your name on here and it's almost a certainty that your post is going to be part of some debate where you are trying to argue the virtues of some form of basketball in Europe. Why frequent such an NBA-centric place such as RealGM where it's guaranteed that those opinions are going to be highly disputed at best? I would think that this exercise would grow tiresome quickly?

[JonFromVA]

It's sad that stuff like this even has to be explained at all.

[JonFromVA]

I feel like there are a bunch of different views that are largely all correct from that POV. Ultimately I think the sticking point is those who think a title of a World Champion is designated to International Competition (be it team or individual sport), those are competed by Nations.

Competitions like the NBA, EPL, La Liga, Super Rugby, NRL, hell even the Diamond League are competed by professional teams or individuals, not nations. These leagues can quite rightly lay claim to the best talent/competition level in their sport if they choose, but that doesn't then default to that competition being a World Championship.

I'm sure there will be opposing views, but I think this is a fairly accepted way of looking at it, especially outside the US.

Riot Games is an American Company owned by Tencent a Chinese Company that happens to run a "World Championship" for the League of Legends video game.

It's not really competed by let alone sponsored by nations, just a bunch of individual clubs from around the world.

The only way this is every going to stop is if someone comes up with a cooler name, and words are ultimately defined by how people use them.

[msmoore66]

I feel like there are a bunch of different views that are largely all correct from that POV. Ultimately I think the sticking point is those who think a title of a World Champion is designated to International Competition (be it team or individual sport), those are competed by Nations.

Competitions like the NBA, EPL, La Liga, Super Rugby, NRL, hell even the Diamond League are competed by professional teams or individuals, not nations. These leagues can quite rightly lay claim to the best talent/competition level in their sport if they choose, but that doesn't then default to that competition being a World Championship.

I'm sure there will be opposing views, but I think this is a fairly accepted way of looking at it, especially outside the US.

Riot Games is an American Company owned by Tencent a Chinese Company that happens to run a "World Championship" for the League of Legends video game.

It's not really competed by let alone sponsored by nations, just a bunch of individual clubs from around the world.

The only way this is every going to stop is if someone comes up with a cooler name, and words are ultimately defined by how people use them.

Interesting. Didn't realize that about ESports.

I don't think anything has to stop, I just think it's worth understanding Lyles POV. In his mind he competes for his country to try win a World Title and be dubbed World Champ vs NBA teams don't compete for their country- I don't think he is denying that the best talent in the world is found in the NBA.

[eyeatoma]

The amount of delusional people and players on this is astonishing.

Americans really wonder why the rest of the world sees them as arrogant and narrow-minded?

This a 1000 times, they are infatuated with themselves.

[Nuntius]

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.

Correct. No national league can ever be a world championship. A world championship is, by definition, NOT a national league.

Well, word definitions are based on common usage, so you're putting the proverbial cart before the horse; but keep it up and at some point the world might accept just your definition for "world championship".

And Popovich has let you all know what the common usage outside of the United States is

[Nuntius]

I wonder if there were franchises located all over the world but all the players were American, would that be a world championship?

Yes.

[Black star]

This is such a silly conversation. You literally have to be in a world championship to be crowned a world champion. The NBA being the best league in the world doesn't change that fact.

And it doesn't make sense either. The NBA champion is the world champion because they are the best team in the world and would destroy any other team outside the league... except for those years when there is an official world championship that everybody cares about aka the Olympics. I think most reasonable people would take a fully engaged team USA over this years Nuggets or last years Warriors. So we know there is always at least one potential team, team USA, that is better than the yearly NBA champion the only difference being team USA doesn't seriously play more than one tournament every 4 years.

[Nuntius]

Champions League winners are World Champions then? Premier League winner is World Champion too?

Not so sure.

At least the Champions League winner qualifies for the FIFA Club World Cup, and as a winner of that the team can legitimately call itself Club World Champion. Not that Europeans care much about it as this is just a mere small bonus to the main prize of winning the Champions League.

Everyone knows that the Champions League is the trophy of the best club in the world. The FIFA club World Cup is treated by teams like the FIBA World Cup by the U.S.

Only the winner of the FIFA Club World Cup can call themselves the World Champion, though. If a team wins the Champions League but doesn't win the FIFA Club World Cup then they cannot call themselves the World Champion. And that's because the Champions League is NOT a world championship. It's a continental championship.

Now granted, the winner of the Champions League does usually win the FIFA Club World Cup. 19 FIFA Club World Cup competitions have taken place and 15 of them have been won by the winner of the Champions League. The only other region to win is the CONMEBOL, the winner of Copa Libertadores. They have the remaining 4 titles (in all 4 cases, it was a team from Brazil winning). And this also happened when the coup was first established. Ever since AC Milan won it in 2007, there have only been one non-Champions League team who has won that particular title (it was Corinthians in 2012). The last 10 competitions have all been won by the Champions League winner.

So, yeah, the Champions League winner will usually be the World Champion but they do have to compete in the FIFA Club World Cup first and actually win the competition (the games have been relatively competitive).

And you are also correct in saying that winning the Champions League itself is much, much more prestigious than winning the FIFA Club World Cup. Just like winning the NBA title would always be much, much more prestigious than winning a hypothetical world championship for franchise/sports clubs would ever be. Being the World Champion doesn't really matter for franchise/sports clubs in team sports. Not in the major team sports, at least, like association football and basketball. I won't claim to know much about other sports.

[Nuntius]

Note that in the above that this scenario could happen anywhere. The league could be based in Africa or Iceland. In this case it happens to be based in the United States. So I don't know if I would specifically say that proponents of crowning the champions of this league as world's best are specifically being nationalist.

Oh but they definitely are being nationalist. You have people here claiming that the G-League Ignite would beat any non-NBA team. In the past, we used to hear that the Kentucky Wildcats or the Duke Blue Devils would also easily beat any non-NBA team. Why would people go to these lengths if it wasn't based on nationalism? That's the only possible reasoning for this.

Sure, the hypothetical league you're talking about could be based in Africa or Iceland. And if that league was indeed based in there the people I mentioned above would find a way to discredit, just like they do with everything that isn't based exclusively in the States. Because, again, nationalism is one of the key motivations here.

PS:

I think those (like me) are actually frustrated by folks who are so vehemently opposed to making this inference (that the champion of this particular league is likely to be the best team in the world at that particular time).

Also, no one is saying that the champion of this particular league (in real life, the NBA Champion) isn't the best team in the world. They are. By far. People are simply saying that they are not the World Champion because for a competition to be a world championship, teams from all around the world need to compete. That's all there is to it.

People are arguing the technicality. They are arguing that since the league is not technically a world championship but a national league (or even a regional national league if you prefer) then the winner cannot be called a world champion. That's it. That's the argument.

No one is arguing that the NBA Champion isn't the best team in the world.

[Nuntius]

P.S.
I get what the previous guy is saying. I see your name on here and it's almost a certainty that your post is going to be part of some debate where you are trying to argue the virtues of some form of basketball in Europe. Why frequent such an NBA-centric place such as RealGM where it's guaranteed that those opinions are going to be highly disputed at best? I would think that this exercise would grow tiresome quickly?

Because he also is a nationalist. Just like a lot of people in here have a US-Centric viewpoint, Mirotic has a Eurocentric viewpoint.

[DrCoach]

Its the best teams and players in the world

Semantics but i dont have a problem with it

[Nuntius]

I feel like there are a bunch of different views that are largely all correct from that POV. Ultimately I think the sticking point is those who think a title of a World Champion is designated to International Competition (be it team or individual sport), those are competed by Nations.

Competitions like the NBA, EPL, La Liga, Super Rugby, NRL, hell even the Diamond League are competed by professional teams or individuals, not nations. These leagues can quite rightly lay claim to the best talent/competition level in their sport if they choose, but that doesn't then default to that competition being a World Championship.

I'm sure there will be opposing views, but I think this is a fairly accepted way of looking at it, especially outside the US.

For what is worth, the Diamond League has a medal table that tracks the medals by country. It's the country flag that comes up next to the player's name when they're shown on TV, not the logo of their team. The Diamond League is a proper world tour, imo, that just has a corporate sponsor. Athletics are like that, in general. Most of them are individual competitions but the players are almost always thought of as representing their country even in those individual competitions.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Ok so we will just say the winner is the “World’s Best Basketball Team Champion” instead of “World Champion” problem solved.

I didn’t realize one of the main objections here is that these aren’t nation state teams. I personally don’t think that’s necessary to be representing individual nations to say something like “world champions” which again is just vague marketing language. That feels much more nationalistic than just recognizing the team that wins against the best competition in the world, which again is in the NBA.