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World champions.

I mean they are not world champions that title belongs to Argentina and they do not have the Olympic gold Spain has that so how can some justify calling NBA champs world champions.

Do not get me wrong the NBA has the best players from all around the world but ya still cannot call them world champions

NBA>olympics, shoddy int'l leagues

^Then why cant the best nba players win the olympics?

because it hasnt ben the best players the last few shots. what happened when we did put our best out there with the intention of rolling? 92 and 96 happened

I agree.. this also grinds my gears. They are NBA champions, NOT world champions.

AN nba C team has more talent than most world teams so dont make that excuse, lol they had wade, lebron, melo and olympic teams had duncan and iverson and many more.

what part of NZ you from?? i have a friend in Auckland

Christchurch.

ahhh s***, no idea. . i got em into ball big time when he stayed up here for a few months. he left a huge Delonte West fan lol

atlsun wrote:^Then why cant the best nba players win the olympics?

they do, all the time. what league do you think manu ginobili, luis scola, oberto, gasol, navarro, delfino, herrman, calderon, garbajosa, s. rodriguez play in?

Technically it shouldn't be called World Championship, but I don't obsess over every single insignificant detail. All I care about is watching good basketball being played on the court. They could call it the Mega Bowl for all I care.

I know we wouldn't/couldn't do it, but it would be cool to just see this year's NBA champions participate in the Olympics as USA's team.

Obviously we couldn't do it because some players would likely either not be eligible or would want to play for their respective home countries, but hypothetically it would be interesting to see how well either the Lakers or the Celtics competed.

I knew what this thread was about as soon as i read the title This has been discussed plenty of times and yes, I doubt the current World Champions (Spain) care if the NBA champions are called world champions or not, the equation is pretty simple:

NBA Champs: Spurs
World Champs: Spain
Olympic Champs: Argentina

Mere titles, everybody has an opinion about the level of each competition.

would you care if they call it mega vigina bowl.

If not then we can have a celtic and laker vigina bowl final.

dcash4 wrote:they do, all the time. what league do you think manu ginobili, luis scola, oberto, gasol, navarro, delfino, herrman, calderon, garbajosa, s. rodriguez play in?

Incorrect. They didn't when they won those titles.

The last Word Championship final featured one NBA player (Calderon).

The last Olympic Games final featured only one NBA player too (Ginobili).

So don't mix up things. Apart from that, I don't really care. It's wrong techically, but they can call it whatever they want to call it. Swiss 5th basketball U16 league can call their champ "World Champion" too, if they want.

atlsun wrote:AN nba C team has more talent than most world teams so dont make that excuse, lol they had wade, lebron, melo and olympic teams had duncan and iverson and many more.

talent doesn't mean jack when you lack the skills and team chemistry. James White is one of the most talented ever and he's playing in Europe right now when Luke Walton is ballin with the Lakers.

MagicMadness wrote:I know we wouldn't/couldn't do it, but it would be cool to just see this year's NBA champions participate in the Olympics as USA's team.

Obviously we couldn't do it because some players would likely either not be eligible or would want to play for their respective home countries, but hypothetically it would be interesting to see how well either the Lakers or the Celtics competed.

Say the Celtics win the NBA Championship. They could certainly, as a team, compete for team USA. I don't believe they have a single non-American on the team. Actually, they probably would do really well since they're a strong defensive team.

robbe wrote:Incorrect. They didn't when they won those titles.

The last Word Championship final featured one NBA player (Calderon).

The last Olympic Games final featured only one NBA player too (Ginobili).

So don't mix up things. Apart from that, I don't really care. It's wrong techically, but they can call it whatever they want to call it. Swiss 5th basketball U16 league can call their champ "World Champion" too, if they want.

those players def. played for those teams and now they are in the nba. you want to say that they weren't in the nba at the time, thats fine, but lets not be dishonest. i mean, u put in the little word Word Championship "final" so that u don't have to include the TOURNAMENT MVP, pau gasol. that just screams misrepresentation.

dcash4 wrote:those players def. played for those teams and now they are in the nba. you want to say that they weren't in the nba at the time, thats fine, but lets not be dishonest. i mean, u put in the little word Word Championship "final" so that u don't have to include the TOURNAMENT MVP, pau gasol. that just screams misrepresentation.

"The little word" defines the two best teams of each of those two tournaments. That's why I posted this fact. Where is that being dishonest? Everybody knows Gasol is a main player for Spain, and that he was injured in that last game.

So even if you want to add Gasol to that final game he didn't play in, that makes it three players out of fourty-eight (four teams).

If you want to continue calling the NBAs best "World Champ" - no problem. But if you're looking for legitimacy for that, you won't find it in international tournaments. That's all I want to say.

KyleCleric wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Say the Celtics win the NBA Championship. They could certainly, as a team, compete for team USA. I don't believe they have a single non-American on the team. Actually, they probably would do really well since they're a strong defensive team.

That was the talk going on when the pistons won the championship and a team comprising of none of their players came back with a bronze. I remember people saying they should have sent the pistons and got better results as they had more chemistry and possibly even more talent. ]
Personally I think those teams would do better then the olympic teams. It's not going to happen though.