[lpneck]

MTD, to consider how far out there you are, I would present evidence A, which is that I agree completely with JR, and that, quite frankly, doesn't happen very often. The wording in the rulebook in this situation is fine and is clear to me.

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

What you fail to understand is that a defender with LGP loses that LGP if he moves laterally/obliquely into the path of an airborne shooter if the defender does move AFTER the airborne shooter left his feet.

This is exactly right. It's a geometry problem. If a shooter goes airborne, the only way that LGP remains is if the defensive player moves parallel to the offensive player- and if that happens, there can't be any contact.

This is crude, but in the following pictures X is the offensive player and O is the defensive player. The bold letter is where they begin and the non-bold letter is where they end up after the offensive player is airborne.

.....................O
.....................X
.........O
.........X

Here, legal guarding position is maintained, but no contact is going to occur anyway because they are moving parallel to each other as both are moving obliquely.


.....................X
.........O..........O
.........X

Here, the defender has moved INTO the path of the airborne shooter by moving laterally while the offensive player moved obliquely. The defender no longer has legal guarding position when this contact occurs, and a foul should be called on the defensive player.