Getty Image / Ulrik Pedersen
Team USA sprinter Noah Lyles is the newly crowned fastest man in the world. But, he’s arguably as well-known in the states for his consistent beef with NBA players.
That includes Minnesota Timberwolves star and recently crowned Olympic gold medalist, Anthony Edwards. When a sponsor asked Noah Lyles to attend the shoe launch of Anthony Edwards’ signature shoe, he was offended!
Noah Lyles, who recently won the 2024 Summer Olympics 100M Dash by the slimmest of margins, is sponsored by Adidas. That same company sponsors Edwards.
But, Lyles is a pretty boisterous fellow, and had previously pushed back on the idea that the NBA champions are considered world champions, since only team in the NBA are eligible. He constrated that with track and field, where the best of the best are at the big meets from every country.
Of course, we all know that nearly all of the best players in the world play in the NBA, and that there isn’t a team on earth not in the NBA that could beat the Boston Celtics in a seven-game series. But, Noah Lyles hates that they’re called world champions.
In a recent profile by Time Magazine, Noah Lyles revealed that he felt offended by getting invited to the shoe reveal of Anthony Edwards’ signature shoe.
When Lyles was negotiating an Adidas contract extension last year, the company, he says, threw him what it thought was a bone. Adidas invited him to the shoe-release event for Anthony Edwards, the rising Minnesota Timberwolves star who’s got plenty of talent but, unlike Lyles, isn’t a six-time world champ. “You want to do what?” says Lyles. “You want to invite me to [an event for] a man who has not even been to an NBA Finals? In a sport that you don’t even care about? And you’re giving him a shoe? No disrespect: the man is an amazing athlete. He is having a heck of a year. I love that they saw the insight to give him a shoe, because they saw that he was going to be big. All I’m asking is, ‘How could you not see that for me?’”
Of course, Anthony Edwards is an Olympic Champion now, with as many Olympic golds as Noah Lyles has. That means that Noah Lyles better be at the release of the next Anthony Edwards shoe!
Lyles finished with two medals in Paris, as he took bronze in the 200M after being infected with COVID.