James Worthy: Players today reach NBA 'not fundamentally sound'

Los Angeles Lakers legend James Worthy isn't a fan of players skipping college to enter the NBA.

Worthy weighed in on the current state of the league Wednesday during an appearance on 97.1 The Ticket's "Stoney & Jansen Show," expressing frustration with "the rush of guys not going to college" or only going for a year.

"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," Worthy said. "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. All they do is practice threes, lift weights, get tattoos, tweet, and go on social media. That's it.

"So you don't have that sound player; you have an athletic player. And that's what's happening to the game. It's a lot of ISO and looking for mismatches. Bill Russell told me one time, they had five options off of one play. You don't see that anymore."

One Twitter user thought Worthy's comments described Kevin Durant, who responded by saying he agrees with the Hall of Famer about one thing.

Worthy played in the NBA from 1982-94, winning three championships with the Lakers.