The real winners are those who avoid tying themselves in knots arguing about inane topics like who should or shouldn’t be allowed to call themselves “world champions” — Dirk Nowitzki knows that.

That’s why he diplomatically laughed it off and suggested that perhaps both the champion of the world’s best professional league AND the reigning FIBA world champs in the international game had some claim to the designation. He was asked about the ongoing debate on the usage of “world champions” in an interview on the BasketNews podcast while Nowitzki was hanging out at the Paris Olympics.

“I would say both,” Nowitzki said at first. But once he got talking, he did reveal a pretty definitive position, the same held by many international players and fans. The way host Donatas Urbonas posed the question to Dirk centered around Dirk’s NBA career with the Dallas Mavericks and his history representing his country — who was the true world champion, Dirk, the 2011 Mavericks or the 2023 German National Team (who beat a Nikola Jokic-less Serbian squad in the 83-77 in the 2023 FIBA World Cup finals)?

The global conversation sparked back up last year when American sprinter Noah Lyles, who won gold in the men’s 100-meter and bronze in the 200-meter at the 2024 Games, criticized the NBA’s use of the phrase “world champions” — in the context of trying to promote international track-and-field and distinguish it from professional sports. He’s always willing to offer a quote, as sprinters will.

“The thing that hurts me the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals and they have ‘world champion’ on [their] head,” Lyles said during a press conference in 2023. “World Champions of what? The United States?

Despite Lyles’ histrionics, he has a point, and it’s not lost on us that he was saying these things the same year that the US Team laid a horrific egg in the World Cup, losing to eventual champions Germany in the semis before losing to Canada in the third-place game. While maintaining a much more diplomatic posture on the podcast than Lyles did a year ago, Dirk argued a similar point after his initial “both” answer.

“You know, title-wise, the 2023 German team are [truly the] world champs,” Nowitzki continued. “I like ‘NBA Champs.’ To me, that’s fine. … Leave the ‘world championships’ to somebody else. I get it. The NBA’s the best league in the world, and so of course, when you win it, you call yourself the world champs. But technically, it’s not a world championship, so I get both sides. I played FIBA; I played NBA, so I get both arguments. I’m not sure there really is a right argument.”

And you nailed it right there, Dirk.

An easy way to relieve yourself from having to decide where you stand on this one? Just win one of each, a gold medal and an NBA Championship. Six players on the 2024 US Men’s National Team can now call themselves “world champions” no matter which side owns the other in the debate over the phrase’s use, after the USA beat France 98-87 in the gold medal game of the 2024 Paris Olympics Saturday at Bercy Arena. Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday and Anthony Davis have all now won at least one of each: an NBA world championship and Olympic gold.