They aren’t wrong to be upset. It was a dumb take. The NBA is the best basketball league in the world, filled with the best players from around the world. A FIBA world championship means less than an NBA title. NFL would be a fair league to target with that take, though.
If NBA wasnt the biggest basketball corporation in the world, you could easily make an european team out of current nba players that would smash any roster every year, doncic giannis markkanen jokic, not hard to find 5th player when you have such greatness
All us sports fans get how this all works, nobody should care about that World Champion thing, it's no different than calling the Olympic decathlon champ the worlds greatest athlete, Hell put him out on an NFL field and he'd get destroyed.
Best if Noah just sprints, doesn't seem to get how to work attention.
Yeah, pretty much everybody from every country in the world that isn't the USA agrees with Lyles. Yes the NBA is the best league in the world, but unless you are a worldwide league it sounds presumptuous and arrogant. It`s like if the NCAA started calling itself the world collegiate championship. The Japanese could call their Ekiden champions world champions.
If NBA wasnt the biggest basketball corporation in the world, you could easily make an european team out of current nba players that would smash any roster every year, doncic giannis markkanen jokic, not hard to find 5th player when you have such greatness
Youre listing past players not the current ones, historically speaking the US were first to make basketball competitive, similar to the UK doing it with football but is the prem champion named world champion there?
If NBA wasnt the biggest basketball corporation in the world, you could easily make an european team out of current nba players that would smash any roster every year, doncic giannis markkanen jokic, not hard to find 5th player when you have such greatness
Hmmmm?
Wilt
Russell
Elgin Baylor
The BigO
Kobe
Jabbar
Malone
Bird
MJ
LeBron
Dr.J
Duncan
Drexler
Magic
Robinson
Europe can't match that
We are talking about current players. And currently an international all star team would crush the best team the US could put together.
I think the CFL Grey Cup champions should start calling themselves the world champions. I think it is the premier 3 down, 110 yard field, gridiron football league in the world.
It’s the correct take. You won’t see Messi declare himself world champion if he wins anything in the MLS. It’s just factually inaccurate. It’s an American League. America is not the world
There's exclusively American teams and one Canadian city team. It does sound weird to say world champion despite it being obvious there's the best teams of basketball in the world.
yeah... but it would still be INCREDIBLY rare to make a full roster that could beat USA. (it literally is rare). it has happened only once or twice in modern history (they didn't let pros play until 1992), and in one of those years kobe sat out and one of those years shaq sat out.
there isn't a team of 15 europeans that would have a good chance against team usa.
additionally though, and more importantly, all those players you listed are nba players. I don't see you making a list of the non-nba players on slovenia, greece, argentina, etc. that would make up a competitive team. the reason that Noah Lyles is so off in that take is that all the best players in the world play in the NBA and therefore it is the de facto world championship.
and to the person who said currently there is a team of 15 europeans that could beat team USA, very doubtful. there are like 5 or so of top 10 or 15 in the league who are european, certainly. but team usa has only lost 1 time since pros were allowed in and it was a year when multiple of the best in the league sat out.
doncic, jokic, embiid, giannis, a few others. automatic issue is that doncic and jokic play styles are too similar to have good chemistry. embiid and giannis will clash in some regards and embiid and jokic will clash in some regards.
team usa could be curry and ja, durant and booker, lebron and tatum, kawhi (assuming he can be healthy), jimmy butler, klay thompson, damian lillard, kyrie, zion if he can stay healthy, anthony davis, bam adebayo, and whoever you want for your 15th to make you mesh.
Basketball is an international sport where all the best players compete in one league. The best player in the NBA is Serbian. We really don't need to see the Nuggets drop 200 points on the Shanghai Sharks to prove that they're the best team in the world, it's extremely obvious
If Noah's goal was to generate publicity for himself, he certainly succeeded though