Point Guard (1971)

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:51 PM -0500 12/8/03, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>POINT GUARD (for basketball fans)
>
>    The position of "point guard" was also called "playmaking guard"
>or "playmaker" or "passing guard" or "small guard."
>    The other guard was/is the "shooting guard" or "big guard."
>    The LOS ANGELES TIMES covered the great John Wooden-coached UCLA
>teams and might have "point guard" in the late 1960s.
>
If they do, Mike Warren (who later was one of the stars on NBC's Hill
Street Blues) would be the name to check.  He was the 5'11" point
guard (as it would be called now, and may have been then) on the
three-peat UCLA champions in 1966-67 through 1968-69 that still holds
the record for its 88 game winning streak.  This was the team led by
Lew Alcindor (before he became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and also featured
an excellent shooting guard, Lucius Allen.  But it was Warren who was
referred to as "the coach on the floor" (which has always been one of
the roles of the point guard) and was frequently mentioned later by
Coach Wooden as his favorite player.  (I was there at the time, which
is how I remember this stuff.  I was even in an African history class
with Alcindor.)

larry