This NBA playoffs is a shining example of just how much the league has changed. The Mavericks made it to the Western Conference Finals by chucking up over 40 three-pointers per game. Golden State is in the NBA Finals (again) without playing a true center. The average margin of victory in the first five games of the Boston-Miami Eastern Conference Finals is 15 points. Lakers legend James Worthy evidently isn't the biggest fan of the current brand of NBA basketball.
In a recent radio interview on 97.1 The Ticket, Worthy sounded off on how modern NBA players approach the game.
"All they do is practice threes, lift weights, get tattoos, tweet and go on social media. That’s it."
Now, Worthy's comments were a bit hyperbolic, but one can't argue with the fact that teams live and die with trey ball these days. It's not uncommon to see a 2-on-1 fastbreak result in a corner three, instead of layup.
Kevin Durant, the NBA's resident Twitter expert, responded to Big Game James' comments.
It's a classic case of a NBA great from the 1980's and 1990's dumping on the current generation. Worthy believes that the deemphasis on refining your game in college has led to players who lack fundamentals.
"I mean, Kareem had four years with John Wooden, Michael Jordan and I had three years with Dean Smith, Isiah (Thomas) had some years with Bobby Knight. So you learned the fundamentals. Not only that, you learned how to live. You learned how to balance your freaking checkbook in college, there’s a lot of things. When you don’t get that, guys are coming to the NBA who are not fundamentally sound."
Durant himself played just one year at Texas before declaring for the NBA draft, but it's doubtful that Worthy had one of the best scoring forwards of all-time in mind when he made that comment.
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