Poll: Which Is Bigger? Winning Gold v. Winning A NBA Title

JackWESQ

Kobe Bryant is quoted here as saying that wininng a gold medal is more important than winning a NBA title. I agree with him. Notwithstanding being the ultimate Laker homer and Kobe Bryant kiss ***, Mychal Thompson disagreed and said that winning a NBA title is the most important the NBA has the best players in the world ... to which a co-host retorted stating that if that were the case, how USA has been on the losing end of world competition in basketball for the past eight (8) years? Regardless, what do you think? Individually and/or as an NBA player, what would you think is the most important accomplishment? Gold medal or NBA title? (Or you could go with choice (c) and select membership in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame).

/s/ JackWESQ

P.S. Thompson did make an interesting point though. Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone. What do you think when they are mention? The fact that they both won two (2) gold medals? Or the fact that neither ever won a NBA title? I'm guessing its the latter.

SDSportsFan

Winning an Olympic Gold Medal is easily the biggest accomplishment in all of sports. Considering what one has to go through to even make the Olympic Team in the first place, and then to compete at the games with the entire world watching, nothing else is even close.


Steve

yawie99

I'd prefer the NBA title.

bigfische

<< <i>No fan or sportswriter is going to hold against a player the fact that they didn't win a gold medal. That should give you your answer right there. If I were an NBA player and had the choice of the two, I would take the NBA title in a heartbeat. >>




Thats because so few have done it that they cant hold it against the ones who havent.

ymarea

I say winning the NBA title is bigger. I used to feel differently, but then the Olympics began allowing pro athletes to compete...not just in basketball, but in all sports. The Games no longer have the same appeal for me. The innocence and purity are long gone.




Edited for grammar.

bigfische

<< <i><<Thats because so few have done it that they cant hold it against the ones who havent. >>


Why would that even matter? The point is, an accomplished NBA player will be judged by whether he wins an NBA championship or not. The gold medal is nice but it's like an exhibition type of thing for an NBA player. >>



Its not an exibition to the other countries. I guess i see it as being a true world championship, you won something that the whole country is behind, not just your city/state.

bman90278

I would think it's easy for Kobe to say the Gold is bigger because he already has NBA Championship Rings and it would put him in an elusive club if he can add the Gold to his collection. I'm a Laker fan, but I think Kobe would love to boost his legacy a bit. No matter what, I would love to see our guys take home the Gold.

Connecticoin

In basketball, the NBA title is much more prestigious. The Olympics are a joke -- the teams consist of whoever wants to go, and they always play lousy as a team. They should keep the pros out of it like they did before 1992.

Mickey71

Ask Patrick. He has 2 golds but a fellow olympian has all of the NBA titles. No NBA titles has diminished careers of guys named Karl, Charles and Patrick. These guys are supposed to win gold. An individual event is different. These guys are pros. This question is not even debatable to the veterans in the NBA.

SanctionII

Eventually the NBA will go global and a WBA (World Basketball Association) will come into existence.

When a WBA commences operations and professional teams from around the globe compete for a world championship, the Olympic basketball gold medal will take second place. Until then, the Olympic gold medal winner will be the "world champions" and will be looked upon as such by the world beyond the shores of the USA. NBA players and many in this country will (rightly so IMHO) consider the NBA champion to be the world champion (until the WBA starts operations).

sagard

<< <i>I personally doubt that a "WBA" would come into existence. >>



Have you seen the value of the dollar vs. the Euro lately? It would be a natural progression. I'm betting I'll see it in 10-20 years.

You could have a professional World Championship with the best European pro champ vs. the NBA champ. It would make basketball interesting.

jdip9

NBA title means more to me, and I would guess to most NBA players, too.

From Wikipedia:

For different reasons, 10 of its 12 players elected, did not want to participate in Athens, causing USA Basketball to scramble to fill their places. The revamped 2004 team generally consisted of young NBA stars early in their careers, such as Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James, but included recent Most Valuable Players Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson.

Kobe was one of those who didn't want to compete...now all of a sudden it means more to him than an NBA title....what a joke.

sagard

The European Soccer pros have been playing a European championship for a
long time.

It is aptly name the "Champions" league and the top club teams from all over Europe battle it out.

If the Euro stays at rediculous levels they simply could buy more talent from the US as well as make it far more attractive to keep their best players on their side of the ocean. Right now they are paying good money to get NBA rejects. Eventually they could decide they want to compete for the best. Hard to say if this can happen on 10-20 years, but who knows. Your probably right and it will eventually settle into something like Japanese baseball.

Estil

<< <i>Winning an Olympic Gold Medal is easily the biggest accomplishment in all of sports. Considering what one has to go through to even make the Olympic Team in the first place, and then to compete at the games with the entire world watching, nothing else is even close. >>



Isn't that why part of the Olympic oath/creed or whatever is, "the most important thing is not to win, but to participate".

SanctionII

I do not think the NBA, alone, will expand globally and exclude from its global expansion the existing professional leagues outside of the USA. I think the NBA and pro leagues outside the USA will, in some manner, partner together and create a worldwide professional basketball system that will have a playoff system that crowns a world champion.

The system would probably be broken down into a regional format (i.e. North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Austrailia/Pacific, et. seq.). Pro teams in each region will play each other during the season (with possibly a few regular season games between teams from different regions). At the end of the regular season regional playoffs will take place and the regional champions will advance to a global playoff round that determines the global champion.

Players, regardless of what part of the world they were born and raised in, would be able to negotiate and sign contracts to play on any professional team in the world they choose to play for. Non US players could choose to play in America (which happens often in today's NBA) and American born players could choose to play outside of the USA (I read in the paper today that Josh Childress of the Atlanta Hawks signed a contract to play next season over in Europe on a European pro team instead of the Hawks and by doing so is being paid a lot more money than what he could have made continuing to play for the Hawks).

I do not know how or when it will happen, but out of all sports I think professional basketball will be the first to progress to a truly global league. It will do so before soccer since, unlike soccer, basketball is popular all around the world (soccer is not popular on the professional level in North America and does not have the interest of the general public like it does outside of North America).

sagard

I'm guessing Lebron won't be the first big time player to make the move, but eventually someone is going to.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3520860