There is an easy assessment of the National Basketball Association when it comes to its talent level: It’s weak and possibly becoming weaker.

Any fan who watches an NBA game lately will see athletes who are professional by name, but their gameplay will say otherwise.

Professional basketball games are filled with bad shooting and a disturbing lack of fundamental playing skills. Offenses are basic, as a player dribbles at the top of the key, then that player dribbles toward the lane for a shot or settles for a 3-pointer. Gone are the days of the passing, pick-and-roll basketball where offenses played as a unit and players used fundamentals to score.

The NBA has hurt itself during the last 15 years, and the game has digressed to a poor level because it has drafted unproven, young talent, mainly 18 to 19-year-old kids who were never ready to play in an NBA game.

Professional basketball used to be played at a level that awed. Now, it is played at a level that leaves fans scratching their heads.

In 2001, the Washington Wizards drafted Kwame Brown. It marked the first time that a high school player was drafted as the first pick in the NBA draft. Brown has never panned out in the league. Before him were first-round picks Rashard Lewis, Al Harrington, Korleone Young, Jonathan Bender and Leon Smith, all of them fresh out of high school. None of them became household names, but all contributed to the recent state of the NBA, because they were watering down the league with their poor play.

It’s true that Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady all came to the NBA out of high school and have excelled. Bryant and Garnett are hall-of-fame players, and Bryant will go down as one of the best players in history.

For every Bryant and Garnett, however, there is a Tyson Chandler, Ousmane Cisse, DeSagana Diop, Travis Outlaw, Ndudi Ebi, James Lang, Robert Swift and Sebastian Telfair. These players never made it or reached high levels in the NBA. They were guaranteed $3 million-a-year contracts for at least three years, and as a result, played more than they should have, once again lowering the talent level on the court.

In 2006, the NBA instituted its “one-and-done” rule where a player cannot enter the draft until he is at least 19. This has led to many high school players going to college for one year and leaving the school immediately after their freshman seasons for a shot at the NBA.

The University of Kentucky is the king of this rule. In the past three seasons it has lost John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe, Daniel Orton and Brandon Knight to the NBA after only one year of college. This year’s Wildcats won the NCAA title and are expected to lose Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague to the draft. They are all freshmen.

We are not criticizing the kids. If a person has a shot at making millions of dollars, then let them. It’s the adults involved with the league who are creating the problem. Why would the NBA want to take an unproven player who severely lacks the fundamentals to play the game? It’s better for coaches, such as Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim or Florida’s Billy Donovan, to have these players for at least three years and turn them into great basketball players. Instead, the NBA is full of great athletes, but very few good players.

Prior to the mid-1990s, players usually went to college for at least three years. It was almost unheard of for a player to leave after one or two years of playing at the collegiate level. It did happen occasionally, as Allen Iverson left Georgetown after his sophomore year in 1996, and Ron Mercer left Kentucky after his sophomore season in 1997, among a few others. But then something changed. It became acceptable to draft players based on a probability that they would succeed.

This eventually lowered the average age of the NBA player and lowered the average skill level, too. As a result, young players who were not ready to play in the league were no longer playing against a crop of men who had established their skills at a high collegiate level. They were now beginning to play primarily against other players who were not qualified to be true NBA players.

Teams can no longer score routinely in the 100s as they did up until the 1980s and early 90s. Proponents of today’s NBA game say that’s because defenses have gotten better. No, they haven’t. The NBA does allow teams to play a zone defense, but that doesn’t mean the talent on the court is just as good as it was 15, or even 10, years ago.

Of course, players such as Wall of the Washington Wizards and Cousins of the Sacramento Kings can compete in today’s NBA ”“ simply because they are playing against others who also can’t play at a true NBA level. Most young players today don’t understand the nuances of the game. Yes, they have to compete against future hall-of-fame players such as Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Tim Duncan, but the league isn’t filled with players like those three any more.

Allen, Paul and Duncan were just as good as Wall and Cousins in their first year of college, but they weren’t ready to play in a league dominated by the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley or Shaquille O’Neal, all of whom went to college for at least three years before entering the league. They stayed in school because they knew, as did the adults around them, that they weren’t ready as freshmen or sophomores to enter the NBA, despite their athletic abilities.

Now, unfortunately, today’s “talents” such as Derek Rose (left Memphis after one season) or Knight can shine in a league whose skills are soft and only getting softer.

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Today’s editorial was written by Sports Editor Al Edwards on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.