“If you think you’re world champions, come and beat us” | Relief

If there’s one coach in the Euroleague who never goes unnoticed, it’s Ergin Ataman. And now the NBA knows it, too. The coach of Panathinaikos, with whom he won the Euroleague this season, challenged the NBA champions to a game in Greece to see if they really are, as they call themselves, “world champions”Ataman sent a message directly to the Boston Celtics to challenge them to a fight to find out if they are the best or not.

“After the Boston Celtics became NBA champions, they became champions in Twitter (Now X) as world champions. They see themselves very well. They want an incredible number of players to come and play in Europe. They are not world champions“, – the ataman himself reasoned in an interview in Rafin TV which, of course, did not go unnoticed and soon spread across social networks.

And if the coach is defending anything, it’s that in order to become world champions, they need to face the reigning Euroleague champion and beat them. A one-on-one fight between the two best leagues in the world to show who the real world champion is. “If you want to win the world title, come and beat us, the Euroleague champion. If you are so confident, I advise you to come and beat us in OAKA”– the Ataman asserted.

The coach, who also talked about a possible move to the NBA: “The Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks were in the finals, so they don’t need me,” he said, assuring that “if when the contract ends, there will be a team that can go, can talk,” but that’s now “Very happy in Panathinaikos.” In fact, he had already made it clear that his idea was to make Greece a champion team, after he even threatened to quit the team in the playoffs if they failed to reach the Final Four.

The end result? It is already known that Ataman’s charges, including Juancho Hernangomez, eventually became Euroleague champions. after beating Real Madrid, and also in the Greek League after beating Olympiacos in the final.