First, it was Kevin Durant, then USA basketball and now Stephen A. Smith has come at Noah Lyles. The American sprinter has made quite a noise in the NBA circles ever since he questioned the legitimacy of NBA winners being labeled world champions. The tensions between Lyles and the NBA community carried into Paris and after the Games ended Smith didn’t hold back on commenting on Lyles’ performances at the event.

Lyles won the 100m gold by running a time of 9.784s, his personal best. Hoping for more gold glory, his plans came unstuck after he tested positive for COVID-19, two days prior to the 200m event. Still, Lyles, who has asthma, competed in the event and ended up with a bronze medal. But he had to back out from the 4×100 meters race due to COVID. Two medals out of a possible three isn’t a bad look, but Stephen A. Smith was critical of the sprinter.

The veteran analyst skinned Lyles with his offhand yet biting comments. “When you talk as much smack as Noah Lyles does, we don’t want to hear about COVID. I know his team’s making a big deal about it. I mean, he won bronze in the 200 m. He withdrew from the 4X 100 m relays because he was sick. Certainly, nobody is questioning the legitimacy of his illness or anything like that. I certainly don’t mean to imply that,” he pointed out on The Stephen A. Smith Show.

The “smack” that Stephen A. is referring to is none other than Lyles’ infamous dig at the NBA almost a year ago. During the World Championships in Budapest, Lyles didn’t find it right that the NBA champions were called ‘World Champions’. “World champion of what? The United States? Don’t get me wrong. I love the U.S. – at times – but that ain’t the world,” he said. 

Smith did praise Lyles for skill and said he “hoped to see him in Los Angeles 2028,” but pointed out, “he did promise, he was intending to have a clean sweep and a walk away with three gold medals in a 100 to 200 and a 4×1 100 meter relay and he only walked away with one and that was by a nose.” Indeed, Lyles won the 100m gold with the barest of margins edging Jamaican Kishane Thompson by 0.005 of a second.

The banter between Lyles and the US basketball community has been going on in Paris as well. After he finished third in the 200m race, Kevin Durant commented, “World champion of 3rd place?'” under an Instagram post celebrating Lyles’ bronze medal. Moreover, after winning their fifth straight gold in Paris, USA basketball posted “Are we the World Champs now?” on their official X account, alongside a picture of Steve Kerr’s side posing with their medals- no doubt a message for Lyles.

Even though the tag of actual world champions remains with Germany, who won the FIBA 2023 World Cup, by winning the gold in Paris, USA have cemented their status as the best team in the world right now. The 100m Olympic gold medalist also acknowledged that they are the “Olympic champions and in the Olympic champions you face the whole world.” Yet, his earlier comments about Anthony Edwards and the NBA sparked a fresh controversy.

After he didn’t turn up for Edwards’ shoe event on 11 August by Adidas, honoring his gold medal success with Team USA, Lyles’ interview with TIME in June resurfaced. Back then Lyles said, “You want to invite me to [an event for] a man who has not even been to an NBA Finals? In a sport that you don’t even care about? And you’re giving him a shoe?” However, the track and field athlete clarified his absence in a tweet the next day saying he couldn’t attend “based on my prior engagements.”

Meanwhile, Stephen A. Smith did give props to Lyles for winning a bronze medal with a 102-degree fever but again highlighted that the NBA is full of international athletes citing many of them who represented their nation at the Olympics, throwing shade at Lyles’ world champions dig. With his comments, Smith reiterated the quality of the NBA.

Stephen A. Smith points out that the proof is in the pudding

Stephen A., despite his many wild takes, always provides a reason when calling out or putting someone on the stand. This was no different. So, what were the First Take commentator’s reasons for blasting Noah Lyles’ remark? “Do you have any idea how many international players bless the NBA? Jokic is a 3-time league MVP. Where’s he from? Luka Dončić is a superstar in this league. Where’s he from? Manu Ginobili, for years, starred in San Antonio. Where’s he from? Joel Embiid is from Cameroon,” he pointed out.

“When you look at the fabric of the NBA rosters, you see players from all over the world blessing rosters. That’s why they can call themselves World Champions. Because the best that the world has to offer in the sport of basketball find themselves participating in NBA competition, Noah Lyles,” Stephen A. said, directly addressing the man of the hour. But is that enough, though?

By that equation, there would be quite a few “world champions” by now, wouldn’t you say? Because, come on, which team, league, or club wouldn’t want to dub themselves as the best in the world? But per Smith, the NBA can claim to be so because they have talented players from all over the world flocking to join the league. Bear with me, because we are going to take a different route here, namely soccer.

England’s Premier League is widely considered the top league in the world. Similar to the NBA, they can sign players from around the globe. But because the base of operations, if you will, is still in England, they are domestic champions at best. Not international.

Right now, our NBA champions are the Boston Celtics. And nobody can deny the kind of talent the team has, with All-Star caliber and All-NBA team players, and of course, Olympian gold medalists, they rightfully won that title battling other teams in the NBA. But there is a reason the ‘N’ in the NBA stands for ‘National’.

That said, the feeling of having conquered the world when you receive that Larry O’Brien, after working hard for it year in and year out, certainly justifies dubbing oneself as World Champion. But it is difficult to accept justifying the use of the term “World Champions” to describe a domestic league, no matter how globally acclaimed or how many international players are signed to the team.

We want to know what you think of the whole shebang, though. Does Stephen A. Smith’s reasoning make sense? Let us know your side of the story in the comments.

Before you go, do not forget to check out this crossover between BG12 and Georgia Bulldogs star Asia Avinger.