Week 5

After thinking about it, the sport that I chose for this week’s devlog is basketball. I think that basketball is a good example for almost all of the tools that are mentioned in Chapter 2 of the textbook. The first one I want to talk about is the concept of decision-making and feedback. The whole game is based upon decisions- should you pass? Should you shoot? Should you avoid both all together and just guard the biggest player? In basketball, you have to react towards the situation. I never thought of it as a feedback loop, but it kind of is. Every action in the game is only caused by a reaction, and vice versa. The second one I want to talk about is the context of play. A couple of weeks ago in class, we talked about how basketball can be pretty much played in a lot of senses, one of them being HORSE. (I know that that wasn’t exactly what happened, but bear with me.) Basketball can really be played in any sense, whether it be horse, 1v1, or a traditional full court game. You can even play an extremely dumbed down version of basketball by just shooting a paper ball in the trashcan and yelling “Kobe”. Because of this, I feel like basketball honestly has little to no context of play. Sure, there are certain situations or games of basketball that have context to the play, but most don’t really need it. Hanging with friends, playing competitively, or even just throwing trash away can all be context for a game of basketball. Third is constraint. There is an obvious amount of constraint throughout the whole game of basketball, the fact that you can only be on one half of the court for 24 seconds, 3 in the key, etc. But more constraints that are less thought about are those of the challenge of understanding what to do and when to do it. For example, you can’t take a step without dribbling the ball, right? So that means if you’re in a tight spot, you CAN pivot, just as long as one foot doesn’t stop touching the ground. Or you can pass the ball, but what happens when your teammate is being guarded by the tallest guy on the team and everyones already halfway across the court? A lot of huge factors in basketball are a result of constraint. Fourth and finally, goals. There are many goals in basketball, but as cliche as it sounds, the real goal is to effectively work together as a team. Sure, you wanna win the game and get tons of points, but can you do that if you have a ball hog who just wants to win the game on their own terms? You can’t. So although there are definitely big picture goals, like scoring and making sure you don’t get fouled out, there are smaller goals that are more important in the end.