You're so ARROGANT. The whole WORLD'S CATS MUST TAKE SH-TS IN YOUR BATHTUB. Just another typical UGLY AMERICAN.
You really don't see the point or you just being obnoxious? That the NBA is the best pro basketball in the world is an opinion, not a fact. While I personally agree with the opinion, and probably everybody on earth also agrees, that still is not a fact until there is a structured competition among the pro teams in the world. We all know that the best team does not always win championship. That's why I used Team USA in the WC as an example. That might not be the best one. I could have used other examples. There is a thing in sport competition called "upset." There is always a chance that an underdog wins against all odds. Lake Placid is another example. We beat the hockey version of Dream Team. Was the USSR team the best hockey team in the world? You bet. Were they the champion? NO! They were the best by opinion. But they didn't win. So they were not the world champion. Now do you see the point? Circular reasoning. NBA games played in other places aren't world games. The teams belong here. Okay, then the NBA is the world championship under NBA rules. Big deal. I am the world champion of basketball under my rules in my back yard. But when people call NBA champs the world champs, they don't mean that. They mean that it is the world champion of pro basketball. They can mine young talent because they can offer much more money. There are a few Euroleague stars (our own Spanoulis could be one) who don't want to come because they can make more money elsewhere. League merging and having a super championship is exactly the point. You can't proclaim a champion a national champion if more than one leagues exist and their champions don't compete against each other.
Just b/c the players are from different parts of the world, doesn't mean they represent their countries when they play on the court. In WWII many Japanese soldiers represented the United States and fought against their own roots while thier wives and children were herded camps. When these soldiers fought, they carried the American flag, they fought for America, and represented the USA. Olympic Champion? ...a rather poorly used term. To answer your question the last international basketball team to take the gold medal in the Olympics was Argentina. If you're implying there needs to be a competition every year, you have every right to your opinion.
No, I didn't see your point. It's not a scientific fact like force = mass x acceleration. But the great weight of the evidence indicates otherwise, which you agree with. Well there's no structured competition among MLB and minor league teams either - so are the White Sox not even national champions? That's a philosophical point about best team vs. champion team. That exists in every sport in every format. Even if we had EVERY country sending pro-teams to the NBA - that issue would still be around. And that issue is around within the NBA regardless. So no, I don't see the relevance. Not really. You're the one who's saying that the locus of the games is the problem. It's not circular reasoning - it's YOUR reasoning. Let's go with a counter example - let's say that each NBA team played half it's home games abroad, covering all the continents. Would that little bit of semantics satisfy you? I think it's quite silly. What if the NBA was only open to Americans, but the franchises were located abroad? then can they be world champs? And that's what I mean too - because they are. They won the championship in the world's most preemeinent league, featuring the world's best players. So what? You're just rationalizing. Simply because there might be a handful of NBA-ready players in the Europe who haven't come over yet - what does that prove? There's MLB-ready players who stay in AAA because their teams have a logjam at the position. This means nothing. European leagues (and the NCAA) are minor leagues to the NBA. You made it seem as if MLB has some critical distinction - it doesn't. I just explained this, in fact you quoted it: Two leagues did exist prior to 1945. They merged. Now they're the NBA. How is this any different from the World Series, or the AFL/NFL merger?
Really? That's odd, because if Yao Ming has nothing to do with China when he's on the court for Houston, why do we have millions of Chinese rocket fans? Why is there an angry slovenian in this thread? Why does an Argentinian team that only plays together every two years winning a two-week tournament in 2004 have any bearing on an 82-game season and a month of playoff series that occurred in 04 and 05?
There's nothing tacit about it. With respect to professional basketball - THEY ARE THE WORLD. in a practical sense.
NBA has the cash, therefore the best players come and play. World championship? Hmm a little arrogant sure, but honestly...it doesn't really matter. It's all for marketing purposes anyway
Fine. If the pro leagues of the world consider themselves NBA's minor leagues, then they are. But I don't think they do. Grabbing talent from other leauges does not make them your minor leagues. The Latin American leagues aren't minor leagues for the European leagues. Yet Euro clubs keeps grabbing South American soccer players. Minor leagues exist for the sole purpose of developing talent for their respective major leagues. You can't say that about Euroleague basketball. In fact, that's probably the biggest gripe by these other countries about that "world championship" claim. You do see the difference between best team and champion team, don't you? I have no problem calling the Spurs or the Pistons the best pro basketball team in the world. It is an opinion I agree with. But "champion" by definition implies competing in a system. The only system the Spurs compete in is the NBA. So calling them the world champion implies that the NBA is a system for world teams to compete, which is not true. It is not about where they play or what nationalities their players have. It is about identity of the team. Would Liverpool cease to be an English team if they played half of their home games outside of England? No. But who would do that? Your reasoning is circular in this. You claim that the NBA is a world league because the best players in the world play there. But what about the other leagues in the world? You say they don't count because they don't have the best players. Who says the best league in the world is the world league? My point wasn't to differentiate the mergers with the World Series. The point is, when there are more than one leagues in the same claimed territory (America--in these cases; the world--in our main discussion), the only way to determine a championship is to let the teams (or champions) of these leagues to compete against each other. The NBA champion does not play against teams in other pro leagues in the world, therefore they are not the de facto "world champion."
Now, now. Don't get deeper into mud here. I'm saying "world chapms" doesn't mean "world basketball champs". And I'm not saying that you're nationalistic. Rather got yourself stuck in the wrong gear. You're going nowhere and my guess is you took this opinion on random state of mind.
If your talking about in a formal sense as in farm teams in baseball -no. And I'm sure they wouldn't consider themselves a minor league any more than the Arena league or Canadian football league would consider itself a minor league. But that doesn't mean they're not in the practical sense. Again, this is all formalism. I'm using the conventional definition of "mino"r as in subordinate, less important - whatever. Despite the lack of common ownership or formal affiiliation, the NCAA, NBDL, various international leagues DO effectively function to develop talent for the NBA. Of course, they also do other things, like sell tickets, provide entertainment, etc. But so do minor league baseball teams (and IIRC, there are unafilliated minor league teams too, so) - you're hung up on the MLB model and I don't think it's appropriate - I'm pretty sure that 50-60 years ago prior to team affiliations and ownership, baseball minor league teams were still called minor league teams. So I'm content to call other leagues from which the NBA creamskims talent etc. minor as well. This is actually a microcosm of the whole "World Champion" semantics debate. Simply because in baseball, the "minor league" designation has been formalized doesn't mean that the other leagues aren't minor leagues with respect to the NBA. They are in almost every sense. World teams do compete. San Antonio and Detroit are in the world. World players compete. World fans watch. I'm not asking who would do it - I'm asking where the arbitrary cut-off is to calling something "world"; If you're going to rest on formalistic defintions, you'd better be prepared to give me some bright line rules to back them up. I guess you could characterize it as circular, but you agree with it. You said in your prior post that most/all of the world's most talented players go to the NBA. So I don't know why you are disagreeing with it. But if you want me to make it not circular - fine. Let's use the open market as a value: the highest paid players are in the NBA - therefore they are the best players. Or let's use specific examples. Jasikevicus (sp.?) was the two -time (I think) Euroleague MVP for Tel Aviv, IIRC, the last two seasons. This year he is a bench player for the Pacers. Either way, I don't think this assumption - that the NBA has by far the most talented players in the world - is a stretch at all. This is an outgrowth of the "National Champion" argument. I'm sayign that according to the heart of your "World Champion" argument (that the competition is not opened to all teams in a geographic location, it can't claim to be a championship for tha location), neither the NBA, nor MLB, nor NFL champs can claim to be a national champion. (I am assuming that you claim that they can be). The parallels are the same: throughout the US there are various professional and amateur leagues in every sport which crown their own champion - and those teams are not eligible for the NBA, MLB, or NFL finals. So therefore, if we take it to the extreme, since my firm's lawyers league basketball team wasn't allowed to play NBA teams, the Piston's aren't even the north american or national basketball champions. Or let's take another example. The Texas Longhorns are widely acclaimed as being National Champions in college football. Of course they are not even close to being such, insofar as the BCS does not include Division I-AA, II, or III schools, or NAIA schools....etc. That's the trouble if we take an excessivly formalistic approach - i just don't understand the touchiness - I'm sure a lot of it is wrapped up with politics, but not so on this end (my end) at least.
Look Sam. Nobody's saying that NBA Champs wouldn't beat Tel Aviv et al, but they didn't. Cause there are two leagues, totaly different and one goes by the name of NBA and the other by the name of Euroleague (and there are many more in the world) So, one is in the USA and Canada and the other is on the grounds of Europe. Got that? NBA champs didn't win on the grounds of EU, they did at yours. Anyway, if they want to call themselves "NBA world champs" it's fine by me. It's good. It's marketing, it's letting the world known that it is included and all. However, I would mind if they were called "world basketball champions". Got that? I'm not angry or anything, but I think you don't get it the way I do. And from replys I see, many of us (not necessarily outside US) don't..
someone pls send this to Mr. Commish of the National Bball Association. SamFisher invokes the different rules etc to make a point of the NBA ball a different "sport" from the intl ball. Some would go further and say damn it, we invented this sport and we can change the rules and call our champions whatever we want. But the WORLD will laugh at you because in case you forget, WORLD >>> USA + 1/100 Canada, and there's also an international body governing basketball (or another sport if you insist on the differentiation--but then it'd furthermore cast a "regional" shadow on the NBA and the sport it plays). Whether or not the NBA champion team is the best team in the world is irrelavent. Logic says: Unless there's a tournament for the champions from the NBA, the CBA, the EBA, the whatever leagues in the world, and a final Champion is decided by matches, calling a National league's champion the "WORLD CHAMPION" simply is a joke. Now you get the joke?
I just think that if we applied that formalistic a definition to all aspects of sports as is being proposed here we'd have to get lawyers to vet every statement we make. Which would be great business for me, but...... The World can laugh it us all it wants, but they keep sending their players to play in our (and Canada's) league, and they keep watching on TV, and they keep going to our games played abroad. I mean I watched the "North American" finals live in Lanzhou, China.....so if people want to laugh - that's fine. Like I said, i wouldn't laugh if the Aussie Rules Football Champ called itself the world champ despite never leaving the great Down Under, nor will I laugh at Nyquil's world champion tub-pooping cat. Well I would laugh, but not at the "world" aspect of that issue.
Sam I Am A Fish out of da pond The World Champion of Stond Who makes another country proud Stond: a sport where players compete by making illogical comments and circular arguments. The most circular and confusing one wins. Additional rule: A player must compete for a country where he's not a citizen. Good job, Sam.
I am not going to argue point by point with you any more. (There is that annoying distraction called work. ) Most of the other points have been repetitions by now. You just assume the best means the champ. I don't. Let's agree to disagree. I think Houston22's last post sums up pretty well what I've been trying to say. Let me just respond to this point of yours: I concede that you have a point that a national league (or world league for that matter) cannot possibly cover every team in the territory. However, a "major league" exists when all other leagues submit to its eminence, in the practical sense, as you wish, not in the formal sense. Your lawyers league (and its fans) won't complain that the NBA claims to represent THE American basketball league. Not so for other pro leagues in the world. Historically, when more than one leagues in the same territory have approximately same eminence, they begin to challenge each other and either merge or compete for a super championship. The Euroleague and its fans does not submit to the NBA eminence claim (or we wouldn't be debating here). Yet the Euroleague does not have enough power to challenge for a super championship. Would Tel Aviv want a shot at the Spurs to see who is the "real" world champ? Sure. Would they win? I wouldn't bet on it unless the return is lotto like. But you could win the next state lottery. Who knows.
You're free to disagree with my opinion - but i really don't think that my arguments are circular in any sense. I mean, I suppsoe, "the NBA is the best league because it encompasses the best players" is somewhat circular - but I also gave non-circular evdence for it, and I don't think anybody really seriously disputes the substance of that claim - the flow of talent tends to go one way in pro basketball. Plus, I don't like lamas, and I wouldn't wear a vest that ugly in the picture.
