Brian Windhorst thinks the Celtics could win the gold medal at the 2024 Olympics. Speaking on ESPN, Windhorst noted that Noah Lyles’ comments from last year require more nuance. But he did claim that the Celtics would have a good chance of winning the Olympic gold medal and believes they have the right to call themselves world champions.
“Well, today is not the day to disagree with Noah Lyles. Does Noah Lyles regard himself as the world champion because he won the Olympics? If he does, then the U.S. is the champion because they’ve won the last four Olympics. There’s nuance here when it comes to arguments like this, they either want a hard yes or a hard no.”
“If the Boston Celtics were in this tournament, I think they’d have a very good chance to win it. Obviously, they’d be pulling some players off Team USA. But I think the Boston Celtics coming together, I think, considering what they do, I think they’d have a great chance to win it. I’m not going to back down from the Celtics calling themselves world champs and I don’t think they should either.”
This debate has been ongoing since last year, when Noah Lyles slammed the NBA for calling their winners the world champions, considering that it is a national league played in the United States. Lyles faced a lot of backlash for his comments, with players like Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Damian Lillard responding to him.
This debate was relitigated in the wake of Lyles winning the gold medal in the men’s 100-meter sprint. Several Team USA players were in attendance, and Joel Embiid was even spotted walking out as soon as Lyles ran over the line.
Is The Olympics Harder Than The NBA?
Devin Booker stirred the pot even further recently, by stating that it is harder to win an NBA championship than it is to win an Olympic gold medal. Now obviously, it is not an apples-to-apples comparison, as the Olympics tournament takes place over a few weeks, whereas the NBA goes from October to June.
Considering the level of international talent in the NBA, along with some of the best teams in the world being put together by franchises makes the journey to the trophy even harder. Playing 82 games in the regular season and a minimum of 16 games in the playoffs means that teams must play close to 100 games to be able to win a championship.
As for the Olympics, teams must win a total of six games in order to secure the gold medal. Considering the formats of both sporting tournaments are entirely different, the comparison is not fair.
If we talk about which accolade has more prestige, it would have to be the Olympics, as it is on a global stage, and a far more historic tournament. While the NBA houses the best players in the world, they aren’t the pinnacle of international sports like the Olympics are.
