Carmichael’s Clickbait: World champs? NBA champs? Whatever!
Sep 1, 2023, 12:01 PM | Updated: May 21, 2024, 11:59 am
The firestorm Noah Lyles, no relation to Trey, set off last week regarding the NBA champs not really being “world champs” is silly. Let’s just start there.
Full credit to Lyles, and if you haven’t seen his comments, just hit play below…
"I love the U.S… but that ain't the world!" ❌
Noah Lyles throws shade at the NBA's 'world champions' 🏀👀 pic.twitter.com/BRCJagckcK
— Eurosport (@eurosport) August 27, 2023
He raised his profile and put Track and Field center stage. He’s a star and someone U.S. fans should be proudly rooting for — full credit to the man and his accomplishments.
But BROTATO CHIP…
This is one of those dumb, semantical, off-season-is-boring-so-there’s-nothing-else-to-do-type arguments that usually only show itself when the vacuum of no NFL football and no NBA basketball swirls.
The NBA champions are the best team in the world. There is no other team that would beat them, much less four out of seven games. If there WAS a team that COULD, you know who they’d be? ANOTHER NBA TEAM!
This isn’t soccer or some other sport (heck I’d concede baseball), where there is a true world competition. Full respect to the other leagues and teams, but let’s be honest here, 99.99999% of any player anywhere in the world is doing one of two things:
1. Playing in the NBA
2. Wanting to play in the NBA
In fact, the REIGNING EUROLEAGUE MVP HIMSELF weighed in on the “debate” and could all but laugh it off. This isn’t Fred from accounting, it’s the MVP y’all.
Reigning EuroLeague MVP Sasha Vezenkov weighed in on the “world champion” debates floating around NBA circles pic.twitter.com/O04vqJ7rr4
— Kings on NBCS (@NBCSKings) August 31, 2023
Now, if we were talking USA as the best? That we can debate.
The last five NBA MVP winners are Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. They all hail from elsewhere. That Luka guy is pretty good, too. If you want to argue that a team of international stars could beat the team of the best the U.S. has to offer? I’m listening.
And by the way, THAT is what the NBA Cup should be, Adam! But let’s not get crazy and think Real Madrid or Spain or France or Australia or ANYWHERE could beat the Nuggets. Not happening.
“But Dave, you’ve got to play the games actually to KNOW.”
No, I don’t. If you want to live on Dissonance Island, party of YOU, go right ahead. Have at it. Do you know who else the Nuggets haven’t beaten? The Maldives. They also haven’t beaten Jordan, Chile, Mars, or New Zealand.
You go ahead. Vegas would have any national team vs. the Nuggets a minimum 20-point dog. You’d need a combination of injuries, bad, or good, luck and whatever that stuff Chong Li used against Frank Dux in Bloodsport to stand a chance.
Fun convo. Neat convo. Move on.
The Denver Nuggets are the NBA Champions. They’re the best team in the WORLD.
There is no currently constructed team in the WORLD that would beat the Nuggets unless they’re another NBA team.
If you still don’t want to call them World Champions, that’s fine. It just means you’re being either ignorant or willfully silly.
And something tells me Mr. Lyles knows EXACTLY what he’s doing. Well played sir.
Editor’s Note: If you couldn’t tell, this was all in jest. If you missed why we’re doing this, here’s the backstory.
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