# Justified True Belief *Is anything consequential in sports?* > For the full version with images, embedded tweets, and visual breakdowns, [visit BallerzBantz](https://www.ballerzbantz.com/p/justified-true-belief). *This essay was first drafted on the 24th of November, 2024 after Arsenal's 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest.* --- Over the past few months, I spent some time away from football, spared from its chaos and relationships, which were built on a shared appreciation for the game. I was troubled that I seemed to have an answer, opinion, or resolution to most issues relevant to me at that time: why Manchester United wasn't doing well; why a certain manager would get sacked; why a certain dynamic wasn't working; why another commentator was doing it all wrong; which player was more valuable to a team. It made me consider whether any of my calls — and more broadly, the community's — were truly consequential. Here are some questions I pondered: - How precisely can we make predictions about sporting events? - What scale of predictions allows us the most precision? - If we cannot make precise calls, does that even matter? So, some weeks ago, when Arsenal won on Ødegaard's return and broke their non-winning streak, my thoughts raced to Kim McCauley's earlier newsletter about Ødegaard probably being Arsenal's most important player. However, my current obsession is less about whether Ødegaard is or isn't Arsenal's most important player, but whether we can even ascertain that or any other discrete truth about sports. --- ### What next? We'll talk about Ødegaard, but only after considering this *something* called Justified True Belief (JTB). From James Somers' essay: > Epistemologists going back to the Greeks had debated what it meant to know something, and in the Enlightenment, a definition was settled upon: to know something is to have a *justified true belief* about it: **justified** in the sense of deriving from evidence; **true**, because it doesn't make sense to "know" a falsehood; **belief**, i.e., a proposition in your head. Under this framework, to claim knowledge about 'Ødegaard being Arsenal's most important player,' we may need: - **Belief** — Ødegaard is Arsenal's most important player. - **Justified** — Arsenal underperformed in games where Ødegaard did not feature, more prominently than when other players were absent. - **True** — perhaps a single, repeatable event like Arsenal's performance getting restored every time Ødegaard returned. The effort and analysis needed to synthesize this is difficult, murky and, some would argue, unnecessary. However, sports culture demands that we frequently stake claims of knowledge. ### So, what can we know? I do believe there are *simpler truths* in sports. Here's one: Any coach puts out a team they believe can win the game. Here's why it's not so simple: Certain situations demand a coach to consider longer-term goals, player development, and politics when selecting the team. This is the pocket of problems that is capturing all my attention in sports — and why I haven't been able to watch games as much as I previously did. --- ## Related - [[Epistemic Certainty]] - [[Description Trap]] - [[Smartest People]] - [[Reflection as Optimizer]]