Kayla Bartkowski/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
The Boston Celtics are NBA champions. Panathinaikos, a Greek league team, is the EuroLeague champion.
If Panathinaikos head coach Ergin Ataman had it his way, his team would be welcoming the Celtics to Athens for the title of world champion.
“After the Boston Celtics became the NBA champions, they tweeted, ‘World Champion Boston.’ The EuroLeague also tweeted, ‘Beat this team first,’ with our photo. They see themselves very highly. They want incredible numbers to come and play a game in Europe. You are not the world champion. If you want to get the world champion title, come and beat us, the EuroLeague champion. If you are so confident, I say come and beat us in OAKA.”
Euroleague is essentially the Champions League of European basketball. It’s the premier European basketball competition in which the continent’s top clubs compete to be crowned champion.
Panathinaikos finished 23-11 to earn the No. 2 seed in the 18-team tournament. They snuck by Maccabi Tel Aviv 3-2 in a best-of-five quarterfinal series but then crushed Fenerbahçe Beko 73-57 in the semifinals before dispatching top-seed Real Madrid 95-80 in the finals.
The most recognizable names to NBA fans would likely be former Miami Heat guard Kendrick Nunn and ex-Chicago Bulls forward Jerian Grant.
Ataman isn’t the only public sports figure to take umbrage with the “world champion” title. United States track-and-field star Noah Lyles is one of them.
Technically, he’s right. Track-and-field stars, for example, compete on international stages notably at the Olympics and the World Championships. They can truly call themselves world champions.
Sure, technically, the Celtics aren’t “world” champions by winning the United States’ top basketball league. But the world’s best players have been flocking to the NBA with regularity for a few decades, though, so in essence, what the league does now makes sense.
The NBA also isn’t the only league that does this, of course. There’s a league (MLB) that literally names its championship the World Series.
Ultimately, Ataman and Lyles do have points in a literal sense as far as domestic leagues go. But for now, the basketball world will turn its attention to athletics’ greatest international stage, when the NBA’s top talents represent their home countries on the Olympic stage in Paris.