[OKREF]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Incorrect.

LGP is a special case of guarding. You can not have legal GUARDING position of you are not GUARDING.

If it were as you suggest, a defender could be chasing an opponent from behind (2 feet down and facing), pass them, then step across into their path with their back to them just as contact occurs and it would be a charge. We never call it that way....ever. I have never seen anyone at any level call it that way.

Furthermore, if your interpretation were true, everyone would have LGP the entire game once they faced each opponent with their feet down just once somewhere on the floor.

Even more so, your interpretation would permit a defender to move under an airborne opponent since your definition of legal position only involves stance and not position and the rule on airborne opponents only requires "legal position" and that could be satisfied even outside the path and moving under after the opponent was airborne.

Simply put, the definitions of LGP just don't work at all unless it includes the path.

That wasn't an interpretation, that was verbatim from the rule book.