It can be. Situation: B1 is in a legal guarding position where airborne A1 would contact his left shoulder. B1 shifts slightly to his left. A1 now makes contact with B1's right shoulder. Charge on A1.

Again, that's where judgment comes into play. Your definition of "slightly" is going to be different from mine, which will be different from someone else's. However, if A1 is airborne and would've contacted B1's left shoulder but B1 moves and the contact is on his/her right shoulder some would consider that more than "slight" movement. That's shoulder-width movement.

JAR's interp would eventually get him fired from a college staff.

Can't envision this as anything other than a block.

He's there stationary. Offensive player about to make contact. He moves one foot absolutely perpendicular to the path of the offensive player and this makes it a block? Why?

After he's airborne? If he's not already in the path before the opponent is airborne, this is a blocking foul (I wouldn't consider a shoulder as being in the path)...unless something is getting lost in translation here.

He already was in the path. I'm not talking about an extended shoulder. I'm just saying he doesn't have to be perfectly centered to have legal position.

Try this: Contact would have been on his left pectoral muscle had he remained stationary. But he moves laterally so now the contact is on the right pectoral muscle instead. This movement does not make it a block.

I disagree. If B1's movement is such that it doesn't change anything other than the exact point where they take the contact but contact would have occurred even if B1 didn't move laterlly, then B1 had LGP all the time is is legal. B1 is only prohibited from moving INTO the path, not from moving within the path.

No one is saying a defender has to be perfectly centered to have LGP and there's nothing in the rules which says that either. What APG and I are saying is a defender can't shift position on an opponent who is airborne.

Where does it actually say they can't shift position? I only find that they can't move into the path on an opponent that is airborne. If they shift form a position in the path to another position that is in the path they have not violated any rule I can find.

So we're supposed to judge whether B1 has moved into or within the path of A1 while A1 is airborne?

1. Do you believe that's the intent of the rule as it concerns an airborne player?
2. Is that how you've called it in the past?

Yes. yes. Yes.

imo, of course.

I believe I left something out of my question: So we're supposed to judge whether B1 has moved a into or within the path of A1 while A1 is airborne AND if it was within but not into A1's path call the play a PC foul?

5 defenders on the court did not have LGP. Not having LGP by itself is not a foul.

I was already assuming that part, at least mostly. It could be a no call. ;) It can't (or shouldn't) be a block.

Judging it in practice (where exactly is A1 going and would contact have been made if B1 was "frozen" at the time A1 left the ground (NCAAW) or gathered (NCAAM)?) is more difficult than discussing it in theory, though (especially since the path can change after the gather in NCAAM -- the path is set once a player is in the air as in NCAAW).