“World champion of what? …There ain’t no flags in the NBA…”
So said Noah Lyles, Olympic gold medalist and current fastest man in the world in the 200m dash, about the winner of the NBA playoffs claiming world champion status. And wow, did NBA players and fans lose it.
NBA superstar Kevin Durant took to Instagram with a four-word rebuttal: “somebody help this brother.” Draymond Green chipped in with his own Instagram comment: “When being smart goes wrong.”
Even Drake got in on the action, posting that Lyles “thought this speech was gonna be so hard in the mirror the night before… now the whole league doesn’t rate you.”
Others, however, agreed with Lyles, like 100m women’s champion Sha’Carri Richardson, who said on social media, “You have to go against the world in order to be a world champion.”
So what’s the answer? Are NBA champions really the world champions, or just the best in the U.S.? If you measure the world champion by who has the best players in the world, then the answer is easy – the NBA. The reason is simple. Follow the money.
The EuroLeague, which many consider the next best league, simply cannot compete with the player compensation that the NBA can offer. The highest-paid player in the EuroLeague earns just over 3 million euros per year, which is less than the thirteenth man on the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Stephen Curry makes that much when he sneezes.
Another point in favor of the NBA — the league is truly international. Five of the last seven MVPs weren’t American — but where did they play? Milwaukee, Denver, Philadelphia and Oklahoma City. Not Madrid. Not Athens.
Call it arrogance or call it habit, but in America, we call our champions “world champs” in everything. Baseball has the “World Series,” football has the Super Bowl “world champion” ring and now the NBA. Isn’t the best team in the best league in the world the “world champion?” To some, it’s not that simple.
The European powerhouse teams, like Panathinaikos, Real Madrid and CSKA Moscow, might feel differently.
They claim that the competitive nature of the EuroLeague is unmatched. “Unlike the NBA, every game really counts here,” Zeljko Obradovic, a coach in the league, said. NBA superstar Luka Doncic, who played in the EuroLeague for three seasons, said, “The game in Europe is much tougher than in the NBA.”
Europe’s argument is that every possession matters. In the NBA, you can coast in January. In EuroLeague, if you lose in January, you’re toast in May.
As for the actual style of the game, Doncic offered his opinion on the differences in the leagues, saying that it is “easier to score in the NBA,” but that the “NBA is tougher to play because you have many players that are basically impossible to guard.”
To me, this says everything. Luka Doncic, a ridiculously prolific scorer from Slovenia, said the NBA is tougher? That’s the end of the argument. Case closed. But here’s the thing: That wasn’t Lyles’ point. He wasn’t debating Oklahoma City vs. Madrid. He was asking: Who’s the “world champion?”
So, what does world champion actually mean? To Lyles, a world champion means flags, anthems and gold medals. By that definition, only the Olympics count. And sure, that works in track. But in basketball? The Olympics are the side gig. The main job is in June.
The reason Lyles’ statement caused so much stir was because it felt like he was trying to diss the NBA champions who thought themselves on top of the world, not because he was so intent on explaining the technical difference between the Olympic “world champion” and the NBA champion. But the truth is, world champion or not, the best thing you could be as a basketball player is an NBA champion.
But hey, if Noah Lyles and haters alike really want to see a world champion in the technical sense of the term, let’s have Oklahoma City play Panathinaikos in Athens. Personally, I’d love to see the game, but I would expect any hype for a competitive rivalry between the NBA and EuroLeague champs to be short-lived.
My money’s on Shai. In fact, I’ll empty my savings on that.