Point Guard; "point" itself?

[Alice Faber]

Laurence Horn said:
>>
>>Anyway. There have been some interesting comments on the
>>use of _point guard_ in this thread but I wonder if anyone
>>could comment on one of the original questions, which is
>>the use of _point_ itself? Anything to say about the meaning,
>>or any early cites for the lone _point_?
>>
>I'm assuming, without evidence, that this was a positional reference
>to an area of the court behind and to the side of the free throw
>line, where the point guard (not yet so called) positioned himself by
>default to begin the passing process that eventuated in getting his
>team a good shot.  This would have pre-dated the 24 second clock in
>the NBA and the corresponding time limit later adopted in college, so
>that set offenses would have been more frequent and positions on the
>court more stable.  Why that particular area would have been called
>the point I have no idea.  Is there an analogy with hockey, a game
>about which I know very little?  Any Canadians out there?

Hey, you don't have to be Canadian to know hockey!

In hockey, the player on point on a power play (when the other team
is penalized), plays just inside the blue line in the offensive zone.
His job is to keep the puck inside the zone and to feed it to players
nearer the crease (the hockey equivalent of the paint in basketball)
who, in the ideal case, will score. The prototypical point player is
a defenseman, but occasionally a playmaking winger will take some
shifts at point; the downside of this is that frequent defensive
breakdowns occur, resulting in a short-handed goal for the other
team! "Point" can be used to refer to the role *or* to the position
on the ice in which the player filling that role is typically
stationed. For a reasonable-looking diagram showing the position and
the layout of the ice, see
<http://www.lifetimehockey.com/Shooting.htm>.
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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