Point Guard; "point" itself?

[Alice Faber]

Laurence Horn said:
>>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!
>
>no, but it helps
>
>>
>>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>.
>
>Thanks; whatever the actual history, the semantic/referential
>relationship between the hockey point and the basketball point makes
>it plausible that the latter could have been derived from the former,
>which is not to say that it was.

Well, basketball *was* invented by a Canadian!
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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