It bothers me that the average fan, the average sportswriter for that matter, pays so much attention to what's in a box score. A box score does not properly represent the most important thing - team play. It shows some guy scoring 27 points, but it doesn't show that my 27-point man let his guy score 30.
We hope we're better. The reality is we had a pretty darn good team last year. But you can't just throw your gloves out there and be good again. We want to take that next step as a team.
If there are dominant teams, people enjoy discussing whether that's good or bad for the game, and if there aren't any dominant teams, then people enjoy discussing that.
I do my own analysis on the teams I am refereeing. I will know some of the personalities, the players who could be difficult customers in a scrum situation, the ones I am going to have to really work hard on early in the game to get what I want.
I don't want my generals or my defense secretary or my national-security team to ever feel deploying weapons to kill people as routine or abstract, even if the targets are bad people.
If you want to get a deal, negotiate with the teams yourself. Say, "I want this much, and no less, but I'll show up to camp on time." It doesn't seem that hard to me.
Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.
Any time you lose a few in a row, you have to hit reset and come back tomorrow and do the best you can to forget about how the past series went. It's frustrating. Individually it's frustrating. I'm trying to figure it out. And I know as a team, it sucks losing a few in a row any time. So you know, we'll snap out of it.
The freedom to do your own thing ends when you have obligations and responsibilities. If you want to fail yourself - you can - but you cannot do your own thing if you have responsibilities to team members.