OKC Thunder Defense Ace Defends World Champion Claim

It was just a few months ago that confetti rained down on the Paycom Center floor following the Oklahoma City Thunder's Game 7 win over the Indiana Pacers of the 2025 NBA Finals in late June.

This game clinched Oklahoma City's first major professional sports title and got the Thunder over the hump of the NBA's hardest mountain to climb after a nearly 20-year run in Bricktown that featured plenty of contending squads along the way.

With this championship belt, the Oklahoma City Thunder are staring down a dynasty after locking up its top trio of Superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, All-Star Jalen Williams and rising star Chet Holmgren this summer. With still the deepest, most talented team and a group that will continue to lean on development with a young assortment of talent, there is no doubt the OKC Thunder will contend again this season -- and the next half decade.

As the media tours and celebrations continue until the team settles into training camp at the end of the month, the debate now becomes if the Oklahoma City Thunder can be considered world champions.

This has been a silly notion, truly sparked by Team USA track star Noah Lyles a few years ago. Before his bullish comments, no one gave the world champions tagline a second glance. For good reason.

Now, with Eurobasket in full swing, Euroleague bench bosses have begun puffing their chests out with outrage over the claim.

"If you want to be a world champion, you must beat the Euroleague champion. Maybe you must beat the Australian champion as well," Panathinaikos head coach Ergin Ataman said.

His argument falls apart when reluctantly including the NBL and not a mention of the CBA. If the only guaranteed game that needs to be played to claim a world championship is the Euroleague champ vs. the NBA, then it still wouldn't be a worldwide competition. There would still be other professional basketball leagues that didn't get their crack at the winner.

Oklahoma City Thunder defensive ace Alex Caruso took to Instagram to share these remarks from Ataman with a simple caption: "lol let's play the games then," Caruso said.

This is the right mentality to have by the Thunder veteran, a laughable dismissal which Ataman deserves in a self-important attempt at fairness.

The Euroleagues are a good product with quality players, but it pales in comparison to the NBA. There is a reason everyone around the world who touches a basketball dreams of one day suiting up for one of the 30 NBA franchises. There is also a reason plenty of elite-level Euroleague players do not translate to the NBA's style. Look at Vasilije Micic as a clear example who dominated that league before washing out of the NBA.

This is just a silly notion that has gotten way out of hand. Sure, you can dislike the tagline since the NBA only covers USA squads and the Toronto Raptors, but the rosters are made up of the best players in the world.

You would never say the Philadelphia Eagles are not the World Champions of football because they didn't dethrone the Canadian Football League champions. Or they didn't clobber the XFL kings.

The winner of this year's World Series ends the World Championship without needing to go play a winter league title team in December.

The NBA's champion faced the globes best competition and came out on top. Hence, World Champions.

So call them NBA Champions or call them World Champions, just don't act as though there is some disservice or unsolved mystery because they didn't play a group of hoopers from the Euroleagues.

Nor do the Oklahoma City Thunder have to take on the Lawton, Ok. Goodyear rec league champions to prove their worth.