Alonzo Mourning gets real on why modern NBA players are considered fragile: "They take offense to it"

Sports as a whole have undergone quite a few changes over the past decade or so. The attention mainstream sports receive from youth to the pros has increased significantly, which has resulted in the makeup of the players who participate becoming drastically different.

That’s certainly true regarding how these players are coached, as the current generation of athletes respond to a coaching style different from that of old-school players. If you ask Alonzo Mourning , though, the players have become fragile in this aspect of the game.

Mourning shares why current NBA players are considered fragile

Mourning spent 15 years in the NBA, and for nine of those seasons, Pat Riley was his head coach. For frame of reference, Riley is widely considered to be one of the most intense basketball minds of all time, and he coached his players very hard.

Riley’s style of coaching isn’t really prominent in the NBA anymore, as players simply aren’t receptive to it. Mourning doesn’t see that as a good thing, as he thinks players are becoming increasingly fragile because they cannot handle hard truths that need to be said.

“Players don’t receive it quite like we received it back then,” Alonzo Mourning said on All The Smoke . “The word fragile is used quite a bit because unfortunately, it’s hard to say the things that need to be said to people. It’s hard to say those things that need to be said to these players because they take offense to it. They’re fragile from that perspective. Ultimately, it’s about helping you improve your way of thinking so you can be successful. That’s all that it’s about.”

Is Mourning right to call the current generation of NBA players fragile?

This is a pretty bold take from Mourning, and while he certainly isn’t the only old-school player who feels this way, calling out the current generation of players like this will obviously result in him catching some slack from fans on social media.

Different people are receptive to different types of criticism, but players nowadays aren’t big fans of getting screamed at constantly by their coaches. They know when they make mistakes, so it isn’t necessary to constantly treat them like they aren’t professional basketball players.

There are instances, though, where players don’t care what coaches, or anyone for that matter, have to say to them. In some cases, it’s because they don’t want to hear it, but it also makes them more difficult to work with because coaches have to be careful with how they approach them.

Players in the NBA may be more fragile than they once were, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing like Mourning paints it out to be. This aspect of the game is certainly different than it once was, but not all change is bad, which is essential to remember after seeing these comments.

Related: Alonzo Mourning believes that players in the NBA have become too empowered: “It’s kind of gone overboard, It’s unfortunate”