Track Star Noah Lyles Wasn’t Happy When Adidas Invited Him To Anthony Edwards’ Shoe-Release Event

Track star Noah Lyles wasn’t happy when Adidas invited him to NBA star Anthony Edwards‘ shoe-release event last year. 

Lyles doesn’t have a good relationship with NBA players. 

“When Lyles was negotiating an Adidas contract extension last year, the company, he says, threw him what it thought was a bone,” Sean Gregory of TIME wrote. “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?’”

Edwards is one of the top players in the NBA. Helped Team USA win the gold medal in basketball. 

Last summer after Lyles won the 100-meter final at the World Championships in Budapest, he took issue with the fact that NBA champions are often referred to as “world champions.”

Since then, NBA fans and fans of Lyles have gone back and forth. 

“I still don’t agree with the comment,” Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker told The Athletic. “I feel like all the best talent in the world is in the NBA, and this is coming from an Olympic gold medalist (who believes) that being an NBA champion is probably harder to do.”

Edwards won his first gold medal this summer, while Booker captured his second gold medal.