Quoted in 2010:
‘There are no world champions in the NBA, so anybody that has the flag up that says world champions is not correct,’ said Popovich prior to last night’s 94-73 Spurs win. ‘It’s not appropriate. 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 someone mentioned Toronto, Pop said, ‘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.’
Full article: https://www.slamonline.com/archives/gregg-popovich-hates-the-term-world-champions/
Shut up, Gregg
🤔 🤨 Damn I guess that French guy didn’t help him win. Or that Argentine.
This argument is so tiring on both sides
It’s not an argument, the NBA champions ARE NOT world champions. Period. People can make a tantrum all they want but there’s only one truth this.
Oh, they wrote it on the banner. Undisputable.
can we just shut the fuck up already? god damn… who gives a shit
People who still post and talk about this “issue” are brain dead I swear
God, Popovich has got to be one of the most overrated coaches ever. I don’t like that classless loser.
loser.
5 time NBA Champion
🤔
Ok
We still on this
I mean, I don’t know why it’s even a question.
The only argument I keep hearing is "But NBA champs are the best team in the world! When they aren’t, lol. Best team in the world just won Olympics. So are they World Champions? lol
The NBA hate is real even in the r/nba subreddit, I have a question… we are you here?
Does anybody actually care about this issue? Or are people just bored
It’s like a controversy the world wants us to care about but it’s way too stupid to care about
It’s a never ending superiority play. There will always be at least one euro who finds it then jumps to the easy opportunity of calling Americans dumb.
Canada Erasure.
The world champions, I believe, are the Spanish team right now. USA is the Olympic champion.
Okay, that doesn’t make any sense. The Olympics are the premiere international competition, the team that wins the Olympics is the world champion. The team that wins the FIBA World Cup can argue that they’re the world champions before the Olympic tournament happens, but the prestige of that competition is so much lower that it’s not going to be respected by many people.
But he’s not even talking about FIBA because Germany won that. What competition did Spain win to claim the mantle of world champions?
he probably misremembered who won fiba wc, cant think of any other means to claim a world championship. the “I believe” suggests uncertainty
So sick of the “NBA champs aren’t world champs” argument. That and “LeBron with 6 finals losses is better than Jordan 6-0” argument.
Noah and Pop need to lighten up. Stop taking shit so literal.
Popovich has always showed tremendous respect to other countries and been against American exceptionalism so this is pretty much in line with his belief. Nothing surprising.
What’s surprising is players like Durant who has been exposed to multiple cultures and befriended with a ton of international players can’t even have a capacity to be open-minded to this idea and acts like he’s played basketball in the small corner of Texoma his whole life.
I honestly feel like they don’t hate the idea. They just hate the messenger himself. Which is why they have no problem with Popovich or Giannis who essentially gave Lyles a seal of approval.