for basketball fans

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:50 PM -0800 12/8/03, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote:
>  >More recently, NBA references by players, coaches, and media, are
>>often to the positions as designated by numbers:  1= point guard, 2 =
>>shooting guard, 3 = "small" forward, 4 = power forward, 5 = center.
>>This allows for evaluations of the form "He's not a true 1 because he
>>likes to shoot, he's more of a 1 and a half" or "he's a 2.5".
>>larry
>I think this renaming has gone a step further.  A lot of my students
>don't even use the same terms that I do.  They say 'point, post, and
>wing.'  I'm not really sure what a 'wing' in b-ball is, but I think
>it's a small forward.

or a shooting guard, if these are the only choices

>Post is a center. For me, being of a different generation, 'post'
>refers to HOW a center plays, not the position itself. When a center
>plays post, he would be near the basket often with his back to the
>basket, so that he could either screen or do some fancy hook or
>turn-around jumper, or maybe pass the ball back out.

In some dialects, this is a low post, as distinguished from a high
post who plays further out.  "Low post" is also the position as well
as the player, and as such it can also be called the block.  There's
also the verb, "to post up", which allows both intransitive and
transitive uses and applies to guards (even point guards like Mark
Jackson, and certainly to shooting guards like Michael Jordan and now
Tracy McGrady or Vince Carter) as well as to bigger players (forwards
and centers).  The reference is basically to inside, near-the-basket
play.  A post-up move is an offensive ploy wherein the player
positions him (or her) self near the basket, seals off the defensive
player, and backs or fronts in for a relatively high percentage shot.

larry