Noah Lyles is standing firm on his take about the NBA season winners calling themselves world champions, while also advising Drake to go back home to Canada after the rapper had some words for him.
During an interview with TMZ Sports, the track star explained why he won't back down from his opinion, especially after Team USA came up short in the FIBA World Cup tournament. According to Lyles, people needed to remember the point of his initial statement and explained what his motives were behind the statement.
"I do think that the point was lost," he told TMZ. "At the end of the day, it was talking about how I see what we do to our national championships -- I just want the same thing for our world champions. And we're a sport where we're bringing in the most medals every year -- and it's like nobody even knows because they don't pay attention."
Lyles added that he's received messages from international NBA players and some football players who gave him advice about ignoring the criticisms. The most interesting thing he saw in the aftermath was Drake responding to his NBA world champion comments.
"Just go home, buddy. Go home," he said in response to the rapper.
After USA lost to Germany in the FIBA World Cup semifinals over the weekend, Lyles took to his X account (formerly Twitter) to troll the team for coming up short. In his since-deleted post, Lyles shared a screenshot of the 113-111 box score alongside an image of himself saying, "World champion of what?"
Team USA also lost 127-118 in the bronze medal match against Canada in an overtime game. Canada won their first major international medal in 87 years.
