Originally posted by FMF
Yes. That claiming to be the winners of international competion (i.e. World Champions) without competing internationally is daft. A World Champion is a specific thing - a winner of some kind of tournament to which representatives of 'the world' were invited. It is not a title that can be based on such things as what "all basketball fans know". Furthermore, your ...[text shortened]... e of it is not up to your usual standards. Nor is it up to the standards you hold others to.
Like many others here, you confuse unsupported assertions with an actual argument based on facts.
The term "World Champions" regarding the NBA Champion dates from the beginning of the league in 1947. At that time, there was no other professional leagues in the rest of the world that I can find (the first outside the US I've located was formed in the Philippines in 1983). So there was nobody at the time for the NBA Champion to compete with unless like Rags you think they should have sent a call out to every group of five guys who played basketball together world wide. So, the NBA champs legitimately called themselves "World Champions" of basketball a sport which, after all, had been invented in the US only about 50 years before the NBA was formed.
Given that there is no real argument that the NBA Champion isn't the best team in the world (you and nobody else here has even bothered to venture such a claim), I see no reason for the Celtics to change the wording on their championship banners that are hung on display in their home arena. I also fail to see why it's a big deal except it seems to be yet another thing for Euros to bash the US about (there are many things that the US or people in the US deserve bashing for, but the best team in the NBA calling itself the "World Champions", as they have done for 60 years isn't one of them esp. why there isn't any serious dispute that they are the best team).
EDIT: They do look nice, don't they? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/BostonCelticsChampionshipBanners.jpg/800px-BostonCelticsChampionshipBanners.jpg