UPDATE (5:55 p.m.): See the bottom of this post for new information.
My girlfriend is not from the U.S., and has occasionally chastised U.S. professional teams for declaring themselves “world champions.” She has a friend in Gregg Popovich. Here’s Pop discussing the C’s decision to label themselves “world champions” (via the Globe):
“Arrogant, don’t you think?’’ he said. “We were never world champions – NBA champions. Don’t remember playing anybody from another country and declaring victory in the world. ‘NBA champions’ is accurate, and what else do you want to be besides accurate and truthful in what you do? ‘World champions,’ it sends the wrong message. I don’t know if it’s a marketing thing, stubbornness, arrogance, or hubris. I was very thrilled to be a part of an NBA championship team.’’
He’s right, at least about the C’s declaring themselves “world champions” on their (17) championship banners. And he appears to be right that the Spurs refer to themselves as NBA champions instead of proclaiming global dominance:
A quick image search indicates the C’s are not alone among NBA teams in claiming that they have crushed all global competiton. Via the L.A. Times:
And check out the United Center:
It would be interesting to see how teams in other sports (and across the NBA) deal with this. My guess is that it’s not a problem (to the degree that it’s a problem at all, really) in the NFL or the NHL, since they have championship games or trophies that ring off the tongue—i.e. Super Bowl XX champions or Stanley Cup champions. This may also be the case in baseball, since teams can claim to be “World Series champions” and have the international angle sort of covered anyway.
But “NBA Finals champions” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? And the Bulls hybrid solution—NBA World champions—is a bit clunky, no?
So how should hoops teams refer to themselves? World champions? NBA champions? Something else?
Help me out here.
Update: Red’s Army chimes in with a link to a photo showing the Spurs’ first two title banners reading “World Champions,” and indeed, I found a few references to the Spurs changing their banners from “world champions” to “NBA champions.” Some posts/comments I found claim the NBA forced them to do it; others say Pop took the initiative to change it. Can someone give us a definitive answer?
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As a european fan of the NBA I’ve always found this name to be highly inappropriate. Sure, almost all the best players in the world play in the NBA and the Europe Live Tour showed that the best team are indeed in the NBA (though the european teams gave proved to be valuable opponent) but that still doesn’t make the NBA champions the “world champions”
The Spurs changed the names on their banners and I found that great. That’s one of the reasons why I’ll always admire the Spurs organisation.
But actually, go ahead, call your teams “world champions” and give more arguments to every other country than yours out there to think that americans are arrogant. The belief in the world is that for the Americans, the world revolves around their country, well I have to admit that it looks like it when we see those things.