Noah Lyles Says Many Football and International Basketball Players Support His World Champions Comments
By Jonathan Gault
ZURICH — In the United States, Noah Lyles‘ comments about his frustration over NBA players calling themselves “world champions” when they win the NBA Finals has drawn more attention than his heroics at last week’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, where he became the first man since Usain Bolt in 2015 to take gold in the 100, 200, and 4×100 relay. Such is the status of track & field in the US. Outside of the Olympics, it’s only a big deal when it can be tied in to a truly popular sport like basketball.
In the five days since Lyles made those comments in Budapest, no shortage of NBA stars have weighed in with their own opinions. Responding to an ESPN Instagram post, Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant wrote “Somebody help this brother.” The Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green and Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard offered similar sentiments while Aaron Gordon, who just won the NBA title with the Denver Nuggets in June, said he’d “smoke” Lyles in a 200.
Lyles was asked before his appearance at Thursday’s Weltklasse Zurich meet whether any NBA players had reached out to him about his statement. He said that none of the players who were critical of him — largely Americans — had reached out, but some pro international basketball players knew where he was coming from.
“From the world side, I’ve gotten a lot of support,” Lyles said. “I know actually quite a few basketball players because my massage therapist works on them. She’s actually working with the French team right now at the World [Cup] and a lot of them have the same idea as me. When they go back home, their countries aren’t celebrating them as world champions, they’re celebrating them as NBA champions.
“I’ve gotten a lot of football players as well be like, Hey man…I agree with you 100%. It’s funny because in the US, they’re against it, but when you look at the whole world, it’s like oh, wow, a lot of people agree with what I said.”
Both sides have a point here. The NBA is the best league in the world; no one would argue that the NBA champions are not the best (club) team in the world. But they don’t compete for a world championship like Lyles does. If the Denver Nuggets are the world champions, what does that make the winner of the FIBA World Cup, currently being staged in the Philippines?
Well one of the players competing there actually has the best take on this whole situation. After France’s win over Lebanon at the FIBA World Cup on Tuesday, French guard Evan Fournier, who plays for the New York Knicks, told ESPN the following:
“I think it’s the point of view of a lot of Americans that when they win at home, since it’s the best championship in the world, automatically you’re a world champ. I can understand that point of view but I agree that it should be just NBA champ, personally.
“If you participate in the World Cup or even the Olympics and you win, you have a right to call yourself world champion. The way I look at it is NBA champions, for sure, they’re the best team, but it’s just a title. It’s not that big a deal. It’s just a title. But for him to say that, I understand where he’s coming from because he’s an athlete and he just won world titles.”
Perfect. And just so there’s no misunderstanding, when Fournier says NBA champions is “just a title” and “not that big a deal,” he seems to be talking about the title attached to the accomplishment and not the accomplishment itself (which is obviously a huge deal).
Lyles was one of eight newly-crowned world champions at the pre-Weltklasse press conference on Wednesday. Here are a few highlights from the others, including Josh Kerr‘s response to Jakob Ingebrigtsen‘s “just the next guy” comment and the chances of us seeing a Karsten Warholm vs. Mondo Duplantis match race at 100 meters.
Is it fair for the NBA champs to consider themselves to be "world champions?"
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Much more happened at the Zurich Press conference. Read all about it here:
Josh Kerr Responds to Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Noah Lyles Responds to NBAers, & Mondo vs Warholm at 100m?
