Celtics News: Kyrie Irving Discusses Young Players' Expectations for Themselves

Boston Celtics star point guard Kyrie Irving spoke to ESPN's Rachel Nichols about the team's "trying" season as it attempts to incorporate a number of talented players into the scheme, empathizing with his younger teammates as they try to navigate a complicated situation.

Irving noted that it's about compromising but that it also presented them with an opportunity to grow:

"There's a maturity that you have to have, there's a professionalism that you have to showcase every day. That's what the great ones do. You now, I didn't initially play the minutes I wanted to play. I'm 26 years old, in my prime, why do I have to wait for anybody?

"Terry Rozier, you know he played in the playoffs, he did extremely well. Coming back, that's a competition that me and him have. No one wants to say it, but I will. It's part of their growth. When you have winning in mind, then you gotta understand that. You gotta understand your teammates."

Irving also acknowledged he's learned throughout the season he didn't have to try to be the leader and that calling LeBron James to apologize for any difficulties he may have caused him when they were together in Cleveland was an important moment for his own growth.

Finally, he discussed his impending free agency and some of the frustrations that have boiled to the surface given the constant speculation about his future:

"It's really a distraction. And a lot of people don't realize on the outside that a lot of things that are said get into the locker rooms. A lot of things that are put into headlines get into the locker rooms. Media has broken up locker rooms. Like, it's been done before. You say something and it's misinterpreted and instead of addressing it with the individual, like human interaction, you read it on your phone. You read it on a text."

For all of the issues the Celtics may have behind the scenes, however, they continue to mostly make it work on the court. The team is 37-21, good for fourth place in the Eastern Conference, though that puts them on track to face the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the postseason, a potential battle of heavyweights. 

Irving is still the focal point of the team's offense, averaging 23.6 points and 6.9 assists per game while shooting 49.8 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from three-point range. He remains one of the NBA's most clutch late-game performers. 

But there are real questions about whether the current crop of Celtics can coexist seamlessly enough to make a run to the NBA Finals, and there are even more pressing questions about which players will be back with the team next year. Will Irving re-sign? Will some of the young players be traded for Anthony Davis?

For the Celtics, pushing through those doubts, and any chemistry concerns, has become the theme of the season.