After sweeping through the 200-meter race, the fastest man in the world Noah Lyles, decided to trigger every NBA player with a singular quote at the 2023 World Athletic Championships.
“The thing that hurts me the most, is that I have to watch the NBA finals and they have ‘world champion’ on their head. World Champion of what? The United States??”
This remark was not received well by NBA stars. Players including Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, flooded social media comments as they responded in a universal dis-agreeance to Lyles’ statement. And now that the USA Men’s Basketball team is coming home with no medals to show for from the 2023 FIBA World Cup, Noah’s statement which was first ridiculed is now being aggrandized.
Although the yearly NBA championship team is noticeably also the greatest in the world, the track superstar brings up a valid point that NBA teams do not compete with other leagues in other countries to claim a world championship. And because of that it’s almost disrespectful to title yourself such and overlook the rest of the world.
Outside of the NBA, top international basketball leagues consist of the Euroleague, and Australia and New Zealand’s National Basketball League (NBL). You also have national leagues such as Spain’s Liga ACB, the Turkish Basketball Super League (BSL), the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and much more.
Basketball is a global sport that will continue to grow, and the beneficiary to that is the NBA. Younger stars in other leagues who show potential often look to find their way into the NBA. Houston Rockets legend Yao Ming from the CBA, Euroleague’s youngest ever MVP Luka Doncic, and the 2023 #1 draft pick Victor Wembanyama, who played in both the Euroleague and France’s LNB Pro A are a few examples of league crossover success.
During the preseason, NBA teams often face off against outside clubs in exhibitions. And in the history of doing so, the NBA team has won 90% of the time, which amounts to just 17 losses in the last 28 years. The NBA: the greatest league in the world, is a melting pot of the most skilled and athletic teams around the globe. With their only competition being other teams within. This is why at the end of the 82-game season, 16 teams advance to the Playoffs to crown a “World Champion”.
Noah Lyles is correct in his judgment that the NBA finals is not an international competition, and therefore a world champion should not be crowned. Although the 2022-2023 Denver Nuggets were the best team in the world’s best league, thus assumingly the best team in the world, they cannot be recognized as world champions if they’re only facing teams in a league called the National (Not International) Basketball Association.
A great comparison is the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The UEFA is the greatest football league in the world, consisting of players from all over. But the champion league winners- who clearly are the best in the world- are not crowned world champs, just UEFA Champions League winners. A world championship is won through the FIFA World Cup. And as for basketball, the yearly FIBA World Cup tournament is where a “world champion” should be acknowledged, not the NBA.
