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Good read.
Gregg Popovich sees ‘world’ differently
By Steve Bulpett
Boston Herald
The Celtics have 17 banners hanging from the Garden ceiling declaring the club’s world champions in the various years.
Gregg Popovich would beg to differ.
The Spurs coach isn’t disputing any of Bill Russell’s les, and he isn’t saying the Lakers actually beat the Celts in 2008. But he is a bit perturbed by the use of the word “world.”
“There are no world champions in the NBA, so anybody that has the flag up that says world champions is not correct,” said Popovich prior to last night’s 94-73 Spurs win. “It’s not appropriate.
“The world champions, I believe, are the Spanish team right now. USA is the Olympic champion. The Lakers are the NBA champion. It doesn’t make sense for an NBA team to call themselves world champions. I don’t remember anybody playing anybody outside our borders to get that tag. Isn’t that true? I keep waiting for somebody to tell me I’ve missed something.”
When someone mentioned Toronto, Pop said, “There’s a team in Canada. That’s true. The world’s bigger than North America. I know sometimes we as arrogant Americans don’t respond to the rest of the world, but it’s true. There’s a big world out there.”
According to Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca, the club simply ordered a banner to match the other 16 when the C’s won the NBA le two years ago.
Former Celtics general manager Jan Volk, who was with the team for the five les previous, said yesterday that the designation stemmed from the league.
The practice began when basketball was not well developed beyond this continent.
“Over the years, there were some good players from other countries, but nothing suggested that there were any teams that could compete with the best in the NBA,” said Volk. “I don’t think we ever considered at that time that it would be inappropriate to refer to our champion as world champions.”
Popovich took note of that rationale and pointed out the practice is still in effect.
“There have been several championships in the modern era, and people still call themselves world champions,” Popovich said.
Beneath the Celtics name on their banners is NBA in smaller lettering, followed by the year and “WORLD CHAMPIONS.” The Spurs refer to themselves as NBA champions.
“I’m not trying to be an (expletive),” said Popovich. “Why can’t we just be NBA champions? That’s what we are. We’re NBA champions. That’s not good enough? I think that’s pretty cool. I think that’s pretty good to be an NBA champion. That’s hard to do.”
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Good read.
hmmm.. well he's right. World Champions isn't accurate...
WTF prompted this? pretty classic though
Many here would say that Pop needs to make no effort in that regard.“I’m not trying to be an (expletive),” said Popovich.
Popp the Party Pooper.
Technically speaking, Pop is right...
While Pop is essentially correct, his crusade about this comes off as something similar to Phil Jackson's antics.
There was a time that Pop would rarely, if ever, stick his nose into other team's affairs, but the last couple of years, he's done this more and more. From the commentary on the Pau Gasol trade to this.
It's all that wine...
He must really hate the term "World Series".
Gotta agree with Pop though.
of course he's correct
Didn't Pop say this before?
Pop is a no nonsense guy. It is insulting to the other tournaments in the world to be considered inferior in themselves. The Spanish are the World Champs, the Americans are Olympic Champs and the Lakers are NBA Champs. Why mix these up?
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1791061 (I guess this was the reason Artest was out of the option
Popovich >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He has, and the Spurs Banners say 'NBA' Champions. Don't know why it came up tonight, maybe someone mentioned all the Celtics Banners.
Yeah pop you've stated before how ty our country is. Please keep reminding us.
Hmmm...technically Pop is right but technically he's also wrong. Because technically, the NBA is the best league in the wolrd, with the world's best players in it.
That said, Pop takes the arrogant ugly American thing seriously. Amd tries to be respectful like that. I can understand why he does it.
But the hilarious thing is at the begnning of Parker's career he didn't think Parker could pull off being an NBA PG because he was a soft European.
Anyway, officially, the FIBA champions are the world champions.
Just shut up and stop playing Bogans and Mason so much!
...but I thought it was Duncan, who made the declaration that "FIBA sucks" a few years ago.
It was. And?
Well whether it sucks or not, it's called the world championships and the US agreed to call their champion that.
Pop isn't saying the World Champ is the best team...he just saying the NBA championship doesn't fit the criteria for being World Champ...Makes sense because the teams should be representatives of countries to be the world champions....not cities that usually do not have a single player actually from the city on the roster.
World Champions=best team in the best league in the world. Wtf is so hard about that?
Can't agree with Pop on this one. The ing lakers are the world champions right now.
Reactionary jingoist much?
Link?
Spurs acually changed the banners from the world to the nba champions
As to me the comment is funny.
I wonder how Pop reacts when somebody will tell him that NBA stands for NATIONAL Basketball Association
When they got the 2005 one, right? They changed the first two, or was it before that?
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