Kyrie Irving says the recent grind of the Boston Celtics' season and the media focus has become an issue for him on a personal level.

“I didn’t really come into this game to be cameras in my face, you know, be famous, be a celebrity, whatever embodies that, so it’s a little hard for me,” Irving told reporters. “I wanted those things when I was younger but now at this point in my career I just want to play basketball at a very, very high level and the distractions that come within the team sometimes can get overwhelming so, I’m human.”

Irving struggles with his happiness, which Adam Silver touched upon at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

“It makes players very unhappy. Very unhappy,” Irving said of the media bombardment. “Adam Silver was talking the other day about how unhappy NBA players are nowadays because just the scrutiny, the exploitation of everything being judged or someone being a very high stature and people are still throwing stones at him trying to break him, and break him, and break him, and break him, and words are very powerful.”

Irving will be a free agent this offseason, which had added another layer to the situation.

“When you come into a situation where you’re heading into free agency, you have to answer every single question about the team, you have to answer about the mood, the attitude,” he said. "I got away with doing that for so many years, like, being angry and not really being questioned about anything like that, just like ‘what’s wrong with him?’ and it’s like, it just gets overwhelming at times just from, you know, you have high expectations, you want it all right now."