Reading the Game Model Through the Philosophy of Law
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“The game model and the philosophy of law.” Seeing that theme, many of you may have wondered, “Why put sports tactics and law together?”
Standing on the court in daily practice and working with the game model, the foundation of a team’s tactics, I suddenly found a concept from a completely different field connecting in my head. That field was the philosophy of law (legal philosophy).
The game model in sport, and the law in society. At first glance these two fields never meet. But underneath, they share something: the design of rules (agreements) that make an organization work.
Here, though, a contradiction arose in my mind. Law, the most powerful kind of rule I know, basically exists to restrict people’s behaviour and prevent deviation. And for when people do deviate, there is criminal law, with specific penalties written down.
The game model we are trying to build on the court, on the other hand, has to be a framework that removes hesitation from players and lets them make the most of their split-second judgment and creativity.
Do rules bind people, or do they set freedom and creativity loose? When we bring together these two things with opposite characters, might a new perspective on team tactics and player decision-making come into view? That strong curiosity is what led me to write this post.
In this series, I want to get to the heart of the two faces of rules: their power to bind, and their power to create freedom.
The essence of the game model: bringing order to chaos
In sport, a “game model” does not simply mean tactical patterns such as formations or called plays.
It is a shared standard for decision-making across the whole team, a common blueprint for the chaos (uncertain situations) that unfolds continuously on the court. You could say it sets out the broad rules (principles) for each phase of the game: “how do we use space and time?” and “what should we prioritize in this situation?”
The most important point here is that the purpose of a game model is not to operate players like machines.
On the contrary, by giving the team clear standards (rules) in advance, you can remove hesitation on the court and reduce the players’ cognitive load (free up the brain’s resources). This makes it possible for players to make the most of their individual creativity and improvisation, even at extreme speed.
In other words, a game model is a common language, the foundation that lets the whole team act in a coordinated way in situations that change in an instant.
The phenomenon that “giving rules allows creativity to emerge” is exactly the concept in ecological dynamics that “constraints create affordances (possibilities for action).” It seems clear that the game model can become a powerful framework for coaching.
The philosophy of law: a discipline that questions rules themselves
So what is the philosophy of law? It is not about poring over the text of specific laws, such as “how many years in prison for breaking this law.”
“What do laws (rules) exist for in the first place?”
“What justifies rules binding human beings?”
“Is an unjust law still a law?”
It is a discipline that asks these questions about the fundamental reason for rules to exist, and about their value. One of the biggest themes the philosophy of law always confronts is the balance between order (restriction) and freedom.
To keep social order, people’s behaviour has to be restricted by strong rules. But if the restrictions become too strong, people’s freedom and vitality are taken away. In fact, good laws do not exist only to bind people. They also exist to guarantee freedom: “the rules will protect you up to here, so within this frame you can live as freely as possible.”
Next time: why bring two different fields together?
Why dig into the game model, a concept from the world of sport, through the lens of the philosophy of law?
Because the philosophy of law is a discipline that, over a far longer history than sport science, has faced the “dilemma of rules and freedom” head-on and refined its arguments. I am convinced that looking through this lens of historical knowledge will bring the game model into much sharper focus.
Next time, I want to dig further into what the game model and the philosophy of law have in common, and the decisive ways in which they differ.