World Champions

One of the sillier parts of professional American sports is that the winners of a sport’s national tournament are often declared the champions of the world, despite the fact that no teams from other countries were invited to the tournament. There is at least one sport, in my opinion, where the proclamation of the tournament winners as world champions is actually valid, and that is basketball. This past Olympics we saw again what is now the pattern of international basketball, namely American domination. True, the rest of the world is starting to close the gap (on the men’s side) but for the foreseeable future American basketball will remain the undisputed best in the world. No other country will get invited to the NBA finals, but for now that doesn’t matter. Whoever wins that tournament can, at least for now, legitimately claim the title of world champions.