Giannis Antetokounmpo on Noah Lyles’ side in world champion debate: ‘So much backlash for saying the obvious’

rewrite this content material with complete duration and stay HTML tags Giannis Antetokounmpo is on Noah Lyles’ side: The NBA champions must no longer be known as “world champions,” in line with the 2021 NBA Finals MVP.Lyles, an American sprinter, made this level on Aug. 25 after profitable the males’s 100- and 200-meter world titles in Budapest, Hungary, drawing the ire of Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Damian Lillard, Devin Booker, Aaron Gordon, Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, PJ Tucker, Tyler Herro, Tyus Jones, Udonis Haslem, Kendrick Perkins, Austin Rivers, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Denzel Valentine and Drake.”He received so much backlash for saying the obvious,” Antetokounmpo mentioned all through an look on “48 Minutes,” a podcast hosted through former Milwaukee Bucks assistant trainer Ross Geiger.  Antetokounmpo’s feedback in complete:”I wanted to back him up so bad. He received so much backlash for saying the obvious. But I think some people don’t understand it. I think it’s — I don’t know, maybe it’s like — sorry, how can I say this politely? Maybe it’s just like an arrogance thing, you know? I don’t think in any other sport you are called the world champions. In soccer — which is way bigger than the NBA, more popular than the NBA — when they win the Champions League, they say you are the UEFA Champions League champions or whatever the case might be. They don’t say the world champions. When they win the World Cup, they play against the USA team, they play against the teams around the world, countries around the world, then they say they’re the world champs. But in the NBA, you say they’re the world champs. “For me, I believe Manu Ginobili mentioned it the very best — I have no idea if he ever, possibly I must no longer be saying this, however I have no idea if he ever went public — he mentioned that, as a result of they received in 2006, Argentina received the World Cup, ‘I’m the world champ. You guys are the NBA champs, however I’m the world champ. Because I went and beat the Greek workforce that had beat the USA workforce the earlier sport. I beat the Spanish workforce. I beat the Brazilian workforce. So I’m the world champ.’ I agree. At the finish of the day, in order for you to be the world champ, you need to beat the world. I perceive the NBA is the very best league in the world and the ability in the NBA, it is the very best that you are going to ever see in your existence — it is not even shut, the very best league in the world — however we can not say you’re the world champ since you play in the very best league in the world. “I don’t say that there are other teams out there that they can beat the Denver Nuggets, for example — I’m not saying that. But you have to respect those teams and say, ‘Yeah, I’m the NBA champ,’ ‘I’m the VTB champ,’ ‘I’m the Euroleague champ,’ ‘I’m the Greek champ,’ ‘I’m the Spanish champ,’ ‘I’m the French league champ.’ And when you got, like for example now, I think Germany won the World Cup, correct? Yeah, Germany can say, ‘Yeah, we are the world champs.’ They just won the World Cup. I think they beat the USA team, correct? Yeah, they beat the USA team and then they went in the finals and beat the Serbian team, so, in my opinion — his name is Noah, right? Man, I might get some backlash from this, but I really do not care: I totally agree with him. Because I feel like he’s like in the world stage. He’s the best in the U.S., for example, and then he goes and competes against other athletes from other countries and then he thrives in that, so that’s when you are the world champ. When you compete against everybody in the world. “So, lengthy tale brief, I utterly trust him.”One correction: Ginobili led Argentina to a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics, not the 2006 FIBA World Championships (as the FIBA World Cup was then known). Otherwise, though, Antetokounmpo is on solid ground. In 2010, four years before Gregg Popovich won his fifth NBA title and 11 years before he won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, the San Antonio Spurs coach said the same thing, per the Boston Herald:”There aren’t any world champions in the NBA, so anyone that has the flag up that claims world champions isn’t proper,” said Popovich prior to last night’s 94-73 Spurs win. “It’s no longer suitable.”The world champions, I believe, are the Spanish team right now. USA is the Olympic champion. The Lakers are the NBA champion. It doesn’t make sense for an NBA team to call themselves world champions. I don’t remember anybody playing anybody outside our borders to get that tag. Isn’t that true? I keep waiting for somebody to tell me I’ve missed something.”When somebody discussed Toronto, Pop mentioned, “There’s a team in Canada. That’s true. The world’s bigger than North America. I know sometimes we as arrogant Americans don’t respond to the rest of the world, but it’s true. There’s a big world out there.”This isn’t a well-liked viewpoint amongst NBA gamers, however Antetokounmpo was once no longer the first to stay up for Lyles. During the FIBA World Cup a few weeks in the past, Evan Fournier mentioned he consents with the world champion sprinter, by the use of ESPN:”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. And if you participate in the World Cup or even the Olympics and you win, you have a right to call yourself ‘world champion.’ “The means I have a look at it, it is NBA champions — for certain they are the very best workforce, however it is only a name. You know what I imply? It’s no longer that massive a deal, it is only a name. But for him to mention that, I perceive the place he’s coming from as a result of he is an athlete and he simply received world titles.”In other star-player-weighs-in-on-a-podcast news, for about 30 seconds on the latest episode of “Podcast P with Paul George,” it sounded like the forward who won gold with Team USA at the 2016 Olympics was on the same page as Lyles (and Antetokounmpo, Popovich and Fournier). “I believe he is proper, technically,” George said. “Yeah, the NBA, we’ve got guys from in every single place the world, proper? The sport is an increasing number of changing into a world sport with the world ability that is getting into the league, however, from his viewpoint, being a USA athlete, I believe he is proper, in phrases of world champion, competing on that scale and profitable the gold medal.”Then George reversed course: “But at the identical time, I believe you have got a proper, being in the very best — the NBA being the very best of the very best in basketball, with these types of different nations and nationwide gamers being part of our league — yeah, you are a world champion. But I don’t believe there is a incorrect resolution both means.”Hmm. It’s almost like all of this is all a matter of semantics and people didn’t need to get so heated about Lyles’ comments in the first place. 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