The NBA is not just the best players in North America; the best players from all over the world play in the NBA. The same can be said for MLB and the NFL as well.
Fifteen per team x 30 = 450. You can say N.B.A. has most of the best players. Of course there are some international players whom are better than some N.B.A. players. Same for M.L.B. Twenty-five x 30= 750. There are contractual agreements preventing both N.B.A. and M.L.B. from taking all the best players from all the countries. It cost M.L.B. millions for a Japanese player, same for a Korean baseball player.
Let me clarify.
It cost M.L.B. millions simply to begin negotiations with Japanese players and Korean players. That is before player contracts are discussed.
No one can say every M.L.B. player is better than all baseball players in the world.
When did nba guys start saying themselves world champs? It probably caught on recently after the only Canadian team, the Toronto Raptors won their first title in 2019. That was the first non American team to win a championship. They declared themselves the world champions and ever since, winning american cities have been following suit with that distinction.
This post was edited 14 seconds after it was posted.
The NBA is not just the best players in North America; the best players from all over the world play in the NBA. The same can be said for MLB and the NFL as well.
Fifteen per team x 30 = 450. You can say N.B.A. has most of the best players. Of course there are some international players whom are better than some N.B.A. players. Same for M.L.B. Twenty-five x 30= 750. There are contractual agreements preventing both N.B.A. and M.L.B. from taking all the best players from all the countries. It cost M.L.B. millions for a Japanese player, same for a Korean baseball player.
The same applies for the World Championships. If they allowed all the best distance runners in, there wouldn't be any non-African runners involved.
The fact is, the best players in the world at their sport play in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB, so they truly are World champions. Lyles' mistake - and all of yours - is in thinking it can't be a world title unless you're competing on behalf of a nation. That's nonsense.
The best soccer players don't just play in the Premier league, the best cricketers don't juswt play in India, and the best Rugby players don't just play in england, so they can't declare the winners of those leagues World champions.
Good for Noah Lyles for getting veryone all riles up, but the argument is silly, and you all look silly for agreeing with him.
Stephen A. mentioned that there are NBA players from 40 countries. That's like any of the major soccer leagues as well. That doesn't make the NBA champ the world champ. Now, they probably wouldn't lose to any other team, not even any other national team at full strength, but you have got to play the games to earn that title. In track, as Lyles knows well, you might have some guy from Botswana ready to take your crown. If anyone thinks Lyles sounded foolish, how about A-a-ron? He would be about two seconds back in a 200 with Lyles, at best.
Fifteen per team x 30 = 450. You can say N.B.A. has most of the best players. Of course there are some international players whom are better than some N.B.A. players. Same for M.L.B. Twenty-five x 30= 750. There are contractual agreements preventing both N.B.A. and M.L.B. from taking all the best players from all the countries. It cost M.L.B. millions for a Japanese player, same for a Korean baseball player.
The same applies for the World Championships. If they allowed all the best distance runners in, there wouldn't be any non-African runners involved.
You're right in the steeple, marathon, and 10k.
The men's 5000m medals went to Norway, Spain, and Kenya.
The men's 1500m medals went to Great Britain and Norway.
The men's 800m medals went to Canada, Kenya, and Great Britain.
The same applies for the World Championships. If they allowed all the best distance runners in, there wouldn't be any non-African runners involved.
You're right in the steeple, marathon, and 10k.
The men's 5000m medals went to Norway, Spain, and Kenya.
The men's 1500m medals went to Great Britain and Norway.
The men's 800m medals went to Canada, Kenya, and Great Britain.
Yes. Both have pretty evenly-distributed athlete bases that represent the best at their sports in the entire world. On a rare occasion, someone who might otherwise be considered in the top tier doesn't participate for that world championship.
Lyles got the attention he wanted. Now we’ll see if any attention is good publicity. However, the cringe cheese factor that was only known in track circles is now out for everyone to see. Bolt, Johnson were cool. Lyles is just cheesy. Good guy but cheesy. And that is not that marketable.
None of this matters. Lyles is simply trying too hard to stand out and this opinion and his delivery were embarrassing for him and for T&F. Maybe it was all a plot to get his name and the sport out in front of people who don’t know either, but it wasn’t worth it. Whether or not he was correct technically doesn’t matter, he looked and sounded foolish.
Noah's comments here reflect what the rest of the world have joked about for 50+ years. He hasn't looked or sounded foolish to us. Why are US NATIONAL champions declaring themselves to be WORLD champions?
The fact this is so difficult for people from the US to comprehend highlights his point. It's utterly hilarious. It's even in the name of the organisations - the NATIONAL Basketball Association. The NATIONAL Football League.
I haven’t watched the whole press conference, just the clip, but when Noah says “you know what bothers me the most….having to watch the NBA finals and they have world champion on their head….” That’s what bothers Noah the most? It’s cringe worthy. Listen, of course the NBA champion is not a world champion, but Noah Lyles is a world wide cultural speck compared to the biggest NBA stars. In fact Bolt is the only T&F athlete to approach the global (not USA but global) relevance of a Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson or Kareem, etc. The NBA does well over a 1/2 billion $ in revenue over seas. Do you know the total revenue of world athletics or the Diamond league? It’s about a tenth of this or less. True or not, this was a silly fight to pick and Lyles looked foolish doing it. Not the way to win friends or influence people. I’m a big Lyles fan, but in the USA this caused his stock to drop, not go up. You want more great athletes to choose T&F and not basketball or more fans to watch? Find a better approach.
Lyles got the attention he wanted. Now we’ll see if any attention is good publicity. However, the cringe cheese factor that was only known in track circles is now out for everyone to see. Bolt, Johnson were cool. Lyles is just cheesy. Good guy but cheesy. And that is not that marketable.
This is dead on. I’m sure KD would love to meet Bolt or Johnson (if he hasn’t already). These guys are mocking Lyles. It’s not a BIG deal, but it’s sad. I can only imagine the look on Michael Jordan’s face if and when he hears these comments.
The American public does not like true world wide competition. The most popular sports in the US are all sports leagues contained to our borders.
Americans hate the idea of losing to some country that's smaller than one of our states, so we invent sports where no matter who wins, they are always "American".
In the sports where there is international competition, when there's no guarantee of a dominant American athlete winning, that sport suffers. Golf might be the most immune to this but since the other countries that typically win at golf other than the US are Australia, Ireland, England, most people can't differentiate so it doesn't make a huge difference.
They are English speaking, with easy to pronounce Western names, etc... much different that Track that truly has a world wide group of champions that include East Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe.
The NBA is not just the best players in North America; the best players from all over the world play in the NBA. The same can be said for MLB and the NFL as well.
I wish he had picked MLB and the "World" Series to make his point.
1) It isn't a" World" Series, so the name is just stupid on its face.
2) There is no guarantee that the winner of the World Series could beat the champions from Japan in any given year, in a seven game series.
how cool would it be if the MLB and NPB champions faced off at the end of the season? The leagues would probably never go for it due to a whole bunch of boring reasons like injury risk and licensing or whatever but man that would be fun.
Are you referring to Eliud Kipchoge skipping 2023 W.C? Are you referring to limit of three athletes per nation? Seb Coe doesn't have to show up in China with brief cases of gold bars to encourage China to send athletes to Olympics or W.C. There are more good baseball players from Japan and Korea not playing in M.L.B. compared to number of 100m dash athletes from Japan and Korea not participating in international T&F.
Lyles got the attention he wanted. Now we’ll see if any attention is good publicity. However, the cringe cheese factor that was only known in track circles is now out for everyone to see. Bolt, Johnson were cool. Lyles is just cheesy. Good guy but cheesy. And that is not that marketable.
This is dead on. I’m sure KD would love to meet Bolt or Johnson (if he hasn’t already). These guys are mocking Lyles. It’s not a BIG deal, but it’s sad. I can only imagine the look on Michael Jordan’s face if and when he hears these comments.
Ferdinand Omanyala way cooler (and more jacked) than 99% of NBA players
I wish he had picked MLB and the "World" Series to make his point.
1) It isn't a" World" Series, so the name is just stupid on its face.
2) There is no guarantee that the winner of the World Series could beat the champions from Japan in any given year, in a seven game series.
how cool would it be if the MLB and NPB champions faced off at the end of the season? The leagues would probably never go for it due to a whole bunch of boring reasons like injury risk and licensing or whatever but man that would be fun.
1: The World Series was named in 1903. The two teams that played were the best teams in the world, and there hasn't been a day since where any reasonable argument could be made that there is any team anywhere else in the world that could compete for it.
2: There is absolutely a guarantee that the winner of the World Series would destroy the winner of Japan in a 7-game series. The best players on Japan's WBC team are playing in the majors. They do not have a domestic team that could win a series against any MLB playoff team. They'd have trouble beating Oakland. The 25th hitter in each Japan league is hitting about .220 with an OPS under 700, against minor-league level pitching.
This argument applies to basketball, hockey and football as well. There aren't any teams in any non-US domestic league that could compete for those titles, and it's ridculous to claim they could.
Are you referring to Eliud Kipchoge skipping 2023 W.C? Are you referring to limit of three athletes per nation? Seb Coe doesn't have to show up in China with brief cases of gold bars to encourage China to send athletes to Olympics or W.C. There are more good baseball players from Japan and Korea not playing in M.L.B. compared to number of 100m dash athletes from Japan and Korea not participating in international T&F.
There are more good distance runners in Africa than there are MLB-level players in Japan and Korea who aren't already in the majors. The average salary in Japan is $300k. The minimum in MLB is almost $800k. The highest-paid player in Korea makes $2 million; that would be about the 450th-highest salary in MLB. If any of those players were MLB-caliber, someone would easily sign them.
how cool would it be if the MLB and NPB champions faced off at the end of the season? The leagues would probably never go for it due to a whole bunch of boring reasons like injury risk and licensing or whatever but man that would be fun.
1: The World Series was named in 1903. The two teams that played were the best teams in the world, and there hasn't been a day since where any reasonable argument could be made that there is any team anywhere else in the world that could compete for it.
2: There is absolutely a guarantee that the winner of the World Series would destroy the winner of Japan in a 7-game series. The best players on Japan's WBC team are playing in the majors. They do not have a domestic team that could win a series against any MLB playoff team. They'd have trouble beating Oakland. The 25th hitter in each Japan league is hitting about .220 with an OPS under 700, against minor-league level pitching.
This argument applies to basketball, hockey and football as well. There aren't any teams in any non-US domestic league that could compete for those titles, and it's ridculous to claim they could.
I see that you struggle with the definition of the word "guarantee."
I remember when the USA started to send NBA players to the Olympics and a guy who really knew everything there was to know about basketball guaranteed to me that as long as we sent NBA players the USA would never lose.
Fifteen per team x 30 = 450. You can say N.B.A. has most of the best players. Of course there are some international players whom are better than some N.B.A. players. Same for M.L.B. Twenty-five x 30= 750. There are contractual agreements preventing both N.B.A. and M.L.B. from taking all the best players from all the countries. It cost M.L.B. millions for a Japanese player, same for a Korean baseball player.
The same applies for the World Championships. If they allowed all the best distance runners in, there wouldn't be any non-African runners involved.
The fact is, the best players in the world at their sport play in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB, so they truly are World champions. Lyles' mistake - and all of yours - is in thinking it can't be a world title unless you're competing on behalf of a nation. That's nonsense.
The best soccer players don't just play in the Premier league, the best cricketers don't juswt play in India, and the best Rugby players don't just play in england, so they can't declare the winners of those leagues World champions.
Good for Noah Lyles for getting veryone all riles up, but the argument is silly, and you all look silly for agreeing with him.
Okay. Let's use a football example.
This is akin to the winner of the European Champion's League declaring themselves 'world champion' before playing the best teams elsewhere in the FIFA Club World Cup.
The best football (soccer) players across the world play in Europe, for European teams.
Every year the best teams from all European Leagues compete in the European Champion's League.
The winner of the Champion's League is the EUROPEAN Champion.
The EUROPEAN champions then go and compete in the FIFA Club WORLD Cup, against the winners of the Oceanic, South American, North America and Asian equivalents to the Champion's League, to become WORLD champions. All of which are VASTLY poorer leagues, with a notably lower quality of player than the top 5 European leagues.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Noah's comments here reflect what the rest of the world have joked about for 50+ years. He hasn't looked or sounded foolish to us. Why are US NATIONAL champions declaring themselves to be WORLD champions?
The fact this is so difficult for people from the US to comprehend highlights his point. It's utterly hilarious. It's even in the name of the organisations - the NATIONAL Basketball Association. The NATIONAL Football League.
I haven’t watched the whole press conference, just the clip, but when Noah says “you know what bothers me the most….having to watch the NBA finals and they have world champion on their head….” That’s what bothers Noah the most? It’s cringe worthy. Listen, of course the NBA champion is not a world champion, but Noah Lyles is a world wide cultural speck compared to the biggest NBA stars. In fact Bolt is the only T&F athlete to approach the global (not USA but global) relevance of a Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson or Kareem, etc. The NBA does well over a 1/2 billion $ in revenue over seas. Do you know the total revenue of world athletics or the Diamond league? It’s about a tenth of this or less. True or not, this was a silly fight to pick and Lyles looked foolish doing it. Not the way to win friends or influence people. I’m a big Lyles fan, but in the USA this caused his stock to drop, not go up. You want more great athletes to choose T&F and not basketball or more fans to watch? Find a better approach.
For those who dont follow the NBA, the NBA champs are a better team than an all star team. The all star team has no chemistry and essentially a new coach when they go to olympics. It has bitten them before. So the NBA dudes are correct, they are the world champs, because whoever is the best in the NBA is easily the best team in the world. He should have said MLB or NFL. And in the case of an all star team, they win gold against the world, they are world champs! We cant account for talent hiding in the weeds somewhere.
Noah's comments here reflect what the rest of the world have joked about for 50+ years. He hasn't looked or sounded foolish to us. Why are US NATIONAL champions declaring themselves to be WORLD champions?
The fact this is so difficult for people from the US to comprehend highlights his point. It's utterly hilarious. It's even in the name of the organisations - the NATIONAL Basketball Association. The NATIONAL Football League.
I haven’t watched the whole press conference, just the clip, but when Noah says “you know what bothers me the most….having to watch the NBA finals and they have world champion on their head….” That’s what bothers Noah the most? It’s cringe worthy. Listen, of course the NBA champion is not a world champion, but Noah Lyles is a world wide cultural speck compared to the biggest NBA stars. In fact Bolt is the only T&F athlete to approach the global (not USA but global) relevance of a Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson or Kareem, etc. The NBA does well over a 1/2 billion $ in revenue over seas. Do you know the total revenue of world athletics or the Diamond league? It’s about a tenth of this or less. True or not, this was a silly fight to pick and Lyles looked foolish doing it. Not the way to win friends or influence people. I’m a big Lyles fan, but in the USA this caused his stock to drop, not go up. You want more great athletes to choose T&F and not basketball or more fans to watch? Find a better approach.
It's cringe-worthy because, as again noticed by the rest of the (English) speaking world, Americans seem to struggle with irony; obviously that's not LITERALLY what bothers Lyles the most.
You're also failing to account for the question he was asked, the vibe of the interview, the tone of the conversation etc.
It doesn't matter that he's a 'cultural speck' (few people in the UK, for example, could name an active NBA player), he's a world champion who's won at world level.
Real Madrid's revenue in a month is higher than Auckland FC's revenue in 10 years. They still play them in the Club World Cup to earn the title of world champion.
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.