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NBA Star Admits He Wanted Noah Lyles to Lose at Paris Olympics

There was clearly no love lost between sprinter Noah Lyles and members of the NBA at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Lyles had previously angered members of the league for dismissing its “World Champion” tagline, and now Knicks guard Josh Hart admitted he was rooting against his fellow American at the 2024 games. 

During the latest episode of his Roommates Show podcast with Jalen Brunson, Hart discussed his general support for Team USA. “I feel like for most of these Olympics I was very patriotic. I wanted Team USA to win gold in most every event,” he said. 

But after Brunson noted that there was something missing from his statement, Hart admitted he wasn’t happy to see one particular gold medal win. 

“I really wanted him to lose. Dang I wanted him to lose,” he said of Lyles. “I think this was the first time all of NBA Twitter banded together and was just hating. I was just hating and I was like damn, respect, I can’t even hate anymore.” 

Lyles won a gold medal in the Men’s 100m, while Team USA’s men’s basketball also took home gold against France in the Olympic final. 

Lyles, of course, had previously questioned why the NBA refers to its annual Finals winner as World Champions when the league only has teams in the United States and Canada. “World champion of what? The United States?” he said during a 2023 interview. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the US at times, but that ain’t the world.” 

During a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Lyles said he relished the opportunity to have NBA players watch him win gold. 

“They talk about me more than I talk about them,” he said. “I’m very happy that they came to watch because I made a tweet or a post a while ago, and I was addressing people who love me and hate me, and I said, ‘No matter what, you still watched, didn’t you?’ That’s the funny part, because you know, no matter how people see you, they’re still going to watch whether they’re there to watch you fail or watch you succeed.”

He also said his comments had been taken out of context, and were meant to uplift Olympic sports that don’t have the same following as US professional sports leagues. 

“I feel that it took on a life of itself. The NBA was just an example,” he said. “The point got lost in translation along the way. The point was supposed to be that the US has so many people with the title of World Champion or Olympic Champion, and we seem to give it to others who don’t actually have the title. Why do that? They’re already great! They are already dignified in that, let’s celebrate the other sports out there who have taken on the world and are coming back and saying, ‘Hey, we did this for you.’ We want to be celebrated just as much.”

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