urban

[Laurence Horn]

On Dec 17, 2011, at 10:28 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> On Dec 16, 2011, at 11:21 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>
>> "X-city!"
>>
>> This is pretty old,
>
> (we talked about it here in February 2007.  cites back to the early 40s)
>
>> but it's been revived this week:
>
> (had it gone away?)
>
>> http://goo.gl/PKJBB
>>> Griffin's first words about Paul's arrival -- "Lob city!" he said
>>> gleefully to fellow high-flying teammate Jordan on Wednesday -- have
>>> already become a Twitter trending topic and a T-shirt in Los Angeles.
>
> can someone gloss this in some detail?
>
Chris Paul, a star NBA point guard who excels (inter alia) at setting up big men with lob passes near the basket, allowing them to dunk the ball uncontested, has just been traded to the Los Angeles Clippers, who feature Blake Griffin, probably the best dunker in the league.  Griffin is looking forward to Paul's lobbing him those passes to set up "alley-oop" plays (a term that goes back decades in football, originating with John Brodie's passes to R. C. Owens in the end zone, when Owens--unusually tall by the standards of the era to begin with--would outjump the defenders for the ball).  So "alley-oop", as I think we've discussed on the list, began with the very large comic strip character and then was adopted in football and eventually basketball lingo.  Not all lob passes result in alley oops or dunks, though; they could result in an easy lay-up.  And I suspect "lob" (passes) moved to basketball from tennis (shots).    (This is off the top of my head; I could be wrong about!
  the details.)

LH

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