Recently, Greek giants Panasinacos coach Elgin Ataman said in an interview that the NBA championship should not be called "world champions" and claimed that most European league teams can defeat NBA teams.

Ataman said: "If you remove a star from the NBA team, I believe many European teams can beat them. We might as well look back at the preseason two or three years ago. If I do not count correctly, the winning rate between European teams and NBA teams is as high as 70-80%. There is not much gap between NBA teams and European teams. I respect the NBA, they have superstars such as James, Durant, Curry. But if the NBA teams lack any of them, many European teams can beat them."