Where the teams are based is irrelevant to this. If you win the highest level tournament in the world that year for the sport you play, you are the world champion in that sport.
Where the teams are based is irrelevant to this. If you win the highest level tournament in the world that year for the sport you play, you are the world champion in that sport.
Other top soccer leagues around would also be equivalent to the NBA. They are top level leagues.
For a comparison to soccer:
US college basketball is like the Champions league
FIBA is like league one.
foreign domestic leagues like the French, Australian, or Chinese basketball leagues are like league two.
That sounds like Ireland doing funny Irish things. If a team wins the most prestigious tournament of the year in your sport, they are the world champions for that year. Were they, or were they not, the best Gaelic football team to play that year?