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

[Nuntius]

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

You can call it whatever you like. I'm not trying to police what you can and what you cannot say. I'm simply talking about what is technically accurate. That is what this topic is about. That is what Noah Lyles' comment (you know, the one in the OP that people have been ignoring) is all about.

[MoneyTalks41890]

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

You can call it whatever you like. I'm not trying to police what you can and what you cannot say. I'm simply talking about what is technically accurate. That is what this topic is about. That is what Noah Lyles' comment (you know, the one in the OP that people have been ignoring) is all about.

Right so I provided something that was accurate instead. Best team in the league with all of the best teams in the world is the best basketball team in the world that year.

I didn’t realize folks needed it to be about countries for it to be “world champion” which doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me.

Noah’s comment was inaccurate. The NBA isn’t the US. It’s a league located in the US where all of the world’s best basketball players play.

[Nuntius]

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

You can call it whatever you like. I'm not trying to police what you can and what you cannot say. I'm simply talking about what is technically accurate. That is what this topic is about. That is what Noah Lyles' comment (you know, the one in the OP that people have been ignoring) is all about.

Right so I provided something that was accurate instead. Best team in the league with all of the best teams in the world is the best basketball team in the world that year.

I didn’t realize folks needed it to be about countries for it to be “world champion” which doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me.

It's not that the competition needs to be about national teams. Not to me, at least (some other posters in here have indeed expressed this position). It can be a competition that only includes franchises/sports clubs instead of national teams as well.

The minimum requirement is simply that it has to have to teams from every continent (obviously, the continents that ARE populated, no one's talking about Antartica). That's all. As long as the competition has even one team from every continent then it meets the requirement of a world championship.

Noah’s comment was totally. The NBA isn’t the US. It’s a league located in the US where all of the world’s best basketball players play.

I feel like that part of your post is missing a word.

Edit: Ok, I saw your edit now. I don't believe that Noah's comment was inaccurate. The NBA operates like a national league so it kinda IS the US. Yes, it has players from all over the world but that doesn't mean anything. The top leagues in the world across most sports have players from all over the world. The origin of the player doesn't matter.

[Invictus88]

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.

I think it would be a pretty interesting experiment to take the reigning nba league champion right after they win and pit them against a Team USA for a seven game series.

I think due to logistics it's very difficult for Team USA to achieve the level of team cohesion the a playoff-tested nba champion would get to. Is the supreme talent of the national squad able to overcome the well-oiled machine it takes to get the nba crown?

I really don't know how it would turn out.

[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.

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.

Yes good point for the Diamond League actually. I was referring the athletes generally competing in under their sponsors brand, but you are right they do note their country flag. Not entirely sure on the reasons, but some of the athletes aren't members of a pro team so perhaps that is it.

By the way, think you are spot on with most of your posts in here, very level.

[Nuntius]

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.

I think it would be a pretty interesting experiment to take the reigning nba league champion right after they win and pit them against a Team USA for a seven game series.

I think due to logistics it's very difficult for Team USA to achieve the level of team cohesion the a playoff-tested nba champion would get to. Is the supreme talent of the national squad able to overcome the well-oiled machine it takes to get the nba crown?

I really don't know how it would turn out.

That could be an interesting experiment indeed. As a rule of thumb, I'd always give a top tier non-NT the advantage over a top tier NT. Team cohesion and chemistry does matter a lot and national teams tend to be severely lacking in this department because these players only play together for a couple of weeks each year.

Another interesting question is this:

What happens if the stars of the NBA Champion in question were also slated to play for Team USA? Who gets to keep that star?

[Invictus88]

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.

I think it would be a pretty interesting experiment to take the reigning nba league champion right after they win and pit them against a Team USA for a seven game series.

I think due to logistics it's very difficult for Team USA to achieve the level of team cohesion the a playoff-tested nba champion would get to. Is the supreme talent of the national squad able to overcome the well-oiled machine it takes to get the nba crown?

I really don't know how it would turn out.

That could be an interesting experiment indeed. As a rule of thumb, I'd always give a top tier non-NT the advantage over a top tier NT. Team cohesion and chemistry does matter a lot and national teams tend to be severely lacking in this department because these players only play together for a couple of weeks each year.

Another interesting question is this:

What happens if the stars of the NBA Champion in question were also slated to play for Team USA? Who gets to keep that star?

I think if the nba champs don't keep their stars then they lose any potential cohesion advantage they might have had. I think that swings the advantage to team USA.

[AdagioPace]

the funniest thing about this is that even Lillard ("2000nothing" NBA champion) tweeted against Lyles.
The guy really hit a nerve. Relax he just told a fact.

even Durant, of course, couldn't miss the opportunity to show for the 1000th time his insecurity

[nomansland]

Generally I agree but the comparison between the English Premier League is a bit off base. The gap between that league (even assuming it's the best) and the Spanish league or the Bundesliga is much, much smaller than the gap between the NBA and say, FIBA.

The gap between the NBA and the EuroLeague isn't that big. Even though it seems very popular in these forums to say so.

From when the current EuroLeague started, so after FIBA no longer controlled it, the league played against NBA teams with NBA rules and refs. Let's all think about that for a second here, the games between NBA and EuroLeague teams were played with NBA rules and refs.

Now, let's use the proper context of the eras. The EuroLeague didn't really get to such a high level until the 2010s. In the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the level of the EuroLeague was much lower than it is now. Then in the 2000s it got a lot stronger, and then in the 2010s it basically became even stronger. The level of the EuroLeague in the 2010s is the peak level of it.

Now, let's take the EuroLeague from when it finally had really developed, by the 2010s decade, and look at how the EuroLeague teams did against the NBA teams, playing with NBA rules and refs.

2010s EuroLeague against NBA, playing under NBA rules.

NBA was 20-8. And it wasn't like it was just the best EuroLeague teams playing either. Some EuroLeague teams with losing records were playing in those games.

Again, that is playing with NBA rules........

A record of 8-20, would project to a record of 23-59 over an 82 game NBA season. That assumes, that none of the EuroLeague teams would be able to improve at all, once they got used to playing under NBA rules and reffing. Which of course is a ridiculous notion. Of course EuroLeague teams would get significantly better, once they fully adjusted to NBA rules and ref criteria.

And those NBA teams played with their full, normal starting rosters and gave maximum effort? If memory serves, I remember some of those games featuring the Spurs without Duncan, for example.

And 23-59 is still really bad. It's the kind of record that tanking teams put up.

Wonder what would happen if you made the Hornets play in Europe for a year.

I have seen Barca play live a few times, including a Spanish league finals game. The product simply doesn't compare. American players who would be playing in the G League otherwise look like standouts and guys like Facundo Campazzo get nicknamed The Wizard.

Sorry. I wish the European league were better just like I wish the MLS was better. But it's ok to admit they're not.

[rade]

Saying that NBA Champion is the "World Champions" because the best players of the World play in that league, it's also cuestionable. I'm pretty sure we can make a bunch of rosters with players outside the NBA that can compete against any NBA team.

It's also laughable consider the NBA scrubs players that barely play, the best of the World just because the are in an NBA team.

And now I remember those american basketball genius that said Luka Doncic awesome stats with Real Madrid were because rivals teams low level and that he will not make those numbers against "PRO" NBA players

[TheCage4]

Who cares?

[MoneyTalks41890]

Saying that NBA Champion is the "World Champions" because the best players of the World play in that league, it's also cuestionable. I'm pretty sure we can make a bunch of rosters with players outside the NBA that can compete against any NBA team.

It's also laughable consider the NBA scrubs players that barely play, the best of the World just because the are in an NBA team.

And now I remember those american basketball genius that said Luka Doncic awesome stats with Real Madrid were because rivals teams low level and that he will not make those numbers against "PRO" NBA players

I’m still waiting for someone to identify a team outside the NBA that could beat any NBA team in a series. Real Madrid and Barca are made up of guys who washed out of the NBA.

[dhsilv2]

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.

This last sentence of yours was the main difference between sports collectives in Europe and most in USA. American franchises were made for a singular purpose of making money. On the other hand, most of European ones came to be as, as you said it, social groups, people connected by similar status etc. There is some movement nowdays for top football clubs to form a closed league like the NBA, but it was met with sanctions from football associations and a cold reception from the supporters.
I will simply acknowledge the fact that we disagree. I do not believe those grounds you've layed out are enough for the NBA to be proclaimed as "de facto" World Championship. With the existence of other competitions ( such as World cup, Olympics and event that semi defunct club championship organized by FIBA) I feel they are a better representation of the World ( Olympics and World cup at least). In addition, I refuse to acknowledge that a World champion can come out of the league driven solely by the goal of making vast amounts of money for a closed number of owners and a small number of select " best" players. Not to mention PEDs abuse and other shady practices which other worldvide competitions heavily scrutinize and punish. My 5 cents

The problem with the wold cup or Olympics is that ultimately those are models designed for amateur athletes at their core. They really aren't models designed for team sports outside of again that classical "regional" team. Nobody creating these groups ever imagined a true global market for sports like we have today. These models just make no sense what so ever with how organized sports work today.

As for the whole money thing, that's just the system that creates the best results. For good or bad, it works. And PEDs...I can't even really get my head around why people have issues with these things. It's just part of living a happy healthy life when used safely and if you want to abuse them...that's your choice. Just like drugs and alcohol which are far worse for you.

[dhsilv2]

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.

It is very common in the United States to refer to pro sports teams as pro sports clubs. What in the heck are you even arguing about?

Which pro sports is it common to refer to as a club? Everytime I've heard the expression "ball club" in the States, it's in reference to a Baseball team.

That's because baseball is the ONLY US pro sport's league with heavy roots in being a club. Mirotic I believe is just someone's parody account.

[dhsilv2]

In the US, maybe. In the rest of the world, nope. I've said this to you again but your outlook is way too US-centric. The US isn't the whole world. No country is the whole world.

The rest of the world isn't stupid. For the longest time professional athletes didn't even compete in these so called "world" events. People weren't then nor now so stupid they'd not understand what "world champion" means in plain language. Most people through history of basketball had absolute no idea there was a "world championship through FIBA".

Meanwhile today, again people aren't stupid. We all get that this "national team plays world team" model was needed historically. It isn't today and again people aren't stupid. Your model requires people to be stupid and dogmatic is dated systems. I'm sorry but I won't accept that non americans are stupid.

Once again, your perspective is blindly US-centric. Especially the part I bolde. That sentence is just hilariously warped.

I really don't think that there is anything left to discuss here. You believe that the everything and everyone outside the US doesn't matter. We get it.

I didn't say that at all. If you think the average person in China thinks about FIBA over the NBA you're out of your mind.

[dhsilv2]

Not every country has athletes that qualify for the Olympics in every Olympic sport. But every continent absolutely has athletes who do qualify for various sports so every continent is indeed represented.

After a quick Google search, the NBA has players from 41 countries over six continents - So, I'd say the NBA also represents the WORLD's best talent.

The NBA has the world's best talent, obviously. No one has ever disputed that.

But basketball isn't an individual sport. It's a team sport. Therefore, for a basketball event to be consider a proper world event, there need to be teams that represent every continent. And that's not what the NBA is. That's not what the NBA should be either. This is not the league's scope. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The fact that the NBA Champion cannot accurately be called the world champion does NOT mean that the NBA Champion isn't the best basketball team in the world for that year. They absolutely are.

Professional sports teams really don't represent ANY region. They certainly have a "home" court which is a function of again logistics. But beyond that teams represent themselves.

[dhsilv2]

For us Europeans and I assume for the "rest of world" as well this is just dumb everytime we hear "World Champions", It's a joke, especially for people that don't follow the NBA in this case and hear this type of thing but that's it. Nothing that important tbh.

However, when we talk about NFL that becomes even more funnier.

But who cares either.

You feel the NFL champ needs to prove they are the grid iron champs by beating some team in Germany? Struggling to follow how the NFL is MORE funny...

[dhsilv2]

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.

Man, the energy you put into playing this character is amazing!

[dhsilv2]

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.

This whole "for your country" stuff is so weird and frankly cringe.

I should add without being able to find the brackets the chess world championships had like 4 guys from India in position to possibly win near the end. So while there might be regional qualifiers, you still had multiple people from countries in the event and it is a single player game.

If you want to have a world NATIONAL champion, then that's perfectly fine. But you should coin it as that. The best player/team from each country competing for that title. At that point sure, it's a world national championship. But that's not even how these national teams are selected in team sports. We just have an organization build the best team on paper and they are declared the national team. They don't have to win a tournament to become the national champions even (still done in some amateur events mind you).

[dhsilv2]

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.

Sorry but what poster said the G league team would win? And I haven't seen anyone claiming a college team would win like that in over a decade. Anyone saying either is being absurd. The last college team that MAYBE could have won against the best european teams was the 1996 Kentucky team. That's nearly 30 years ago! Anyone saying such absurd things should be ignored.