Draymond Green among NBA stars blasting Lyles’ ‘world champions’ gripe

Warriors veteran Draymond Green and former Warriors star Kevin Durant have taken up arms in defense of the NBA after a track and field star called out the league.

Sprinter Noah Lyles recently swept three gold medals for the United States at track and field’s world championships, winning the 100-meter, the 200-meter and the 4×100 relay. He told reporters Friday that it offends him as a true world champion when American sports leagues throw the term around willy-nilly.

“Don’t get me wrong. I love the U.S. — at times — but that ain’t the world. We are the world. We have almost every country out here fighting, thriving, putting on their flag to show that they are represented. There ain’t no flags in the NBA.”

NBA players noticed once it entered the viral social media engagement bait mill.

“Somebody help this brother,” wrote Durant, a two-time Finals MVP.

“When being smart goes wrong,” wrote Green, a four-time NBA champion.

The argument from NBA players is that they play in the best professional league in the world. Therefore, the “world champion” title isn’t exactly a misnomer, as the title-winning team is the best of the best.

The counter to that is while the teams are the best, and the player makeup is more international than ever, it’s still a competition among American teams. Lyles knocked off every American sprinter, plus the best that Jamaica, Europe and Africa had to offer. Durant and Green were beating up on the Houston Rockets and Cleveland Cavaliers.

What’s particularly interesting about all this is that there’s an actual international basketball competition happening right now that the United States is a part of, one that many of the game’s best American players decided against competing in because they value an NBA title more than a FIBA World Cup title. That’s certainly not the case for non-American teams.

Still, players like Durant and Green have put their money where their mouths are, competed in the Olympics and come out as gold medalists. Perhaps that’s also why they chose to stay home and get involved in an online semantics argument this time around. If there were a world championship for that, those two would certainly be among the favorites.