Richardson backs Lyles against NBA stars as Durant and Drake world's fastest man

Newly-crowned 100m world champion Sha’Carri Richardson has supported Noan Lyles’s sentiments castigating NBA players for calling themselves ‘world champions.’

Lyles has been the subject of brutal responses from NBA stars as well as rapper Drake who dismissed his comments as ‘attention-seeking’ but Richardson agrees with her track colleague.

“I’m standing with Noah on this one. Noah Lyles, the organization (NBA) have players from different countries but they compete against different countries. You have to go against the world in order to be a world champion,” she posted online.

After winning the 200 at the World Athletics Championship last Friday, Lyles had some words for NBA players on what he perceived as a false sense of global success.

“I have to watch the NBA Finals, and they have world champions on their heads,” Lyles said.

“World champion of what? The United States? Don’t get me wrong. I love the US at times. But that ain’t the world. We are the world. We have almost every country out here fighting and thriving and putting on a flag to show that they are represented. There ain’t no flags in the NBA.”

However, NBA players such as Phoenix Suns duo Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, De’Aaron Fox (Sacramento Kings), Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors), and Bam Adebayo (Miami Heat) fired back.

“Somebody help this brother,” Durant said. “Lol, is somebody going to tell him??” Adebayo responded while Fox added: “Why bro care so much?”

“Last time I checked, the NBA was the best competition in the world,” said Juan Toscano-Anderson of the Utah Jazz.

Meanwhile, Canadian singer Drake did not also have kind words for Lyles over the jibe.

“He thought this speech was gonna be so hard in the mirror the night before, now the whole league doesn’t rate [you],” he said.

Besides the 200m, Lyles also won the 100m and anchored the US men’s 4x100m relay team to gold while Richardson added the 4x100m gold and 200m bronze to her 100m title at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.