Irving said the league has changed drastically since he entered it in 2011, though his “eternal flame” for basketball continues to burn. “You have social media and gambling which is running rampant and it’s not the same NBA that I fell in love with as a kid and I’m very much aware of that. And I don’t say that as a negative thing, it’s just when I came in, we were not doing like tipping and gambling meetings. You know, kind of talking about these things that are going on on social media and mental health was like this foreign subject …like nobody ever talked about it in 2011, so I think that the game has changed, it’s become less human, it’s more robotic. And I think my next few years, I kind of look at it as like, do I really love that aspect of it? I love the playing, I love the competition, but do I love all the hoopla that goes into it.”
This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Kyrie Irving on today's NBA: 'It's become less human, it's more robotic'