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World B Free – The Prince of Midair Part 1
Back in the 70ies and early 80ies, when the NBA’s dress code was “flashy” and “funky”, one player still managed to stand out. World B. Free. His over sized charisma and brash ballin’ game made the Brooklyn born streetballer one of the league’s most colorful personalities. Free scored 18,000 points in a variety of ways for the Sixers, Clippers, Warriors, Cavs and Rockets. But even as one of the NBA’s top scorers, he was the type of player who was more than just the sum of his stats. His rim-rattling dunks, scorer’s mentality and opinionated persona put him in a world of his own. At 6′2, this athletic guard’s unique style, on and off the court, set World B. Free apart. Because he naturally had what everyone wants: flavor.
Can you take us back to Brownsville and tell us how you grew up there and how that made you the person that you are today?
Brownsville is a world of its own, as you know. You‘ve been out there, too. It‘s a place that either made you or broke you. So either you were going to be someone or you wasn‘t.
I always followed a couple of guys that were older than me. And they didn‘t let me play basketball until I was in 11th or 12th grade. A lot of the guys who got out there were a lot younger than I was. I didn‘t have that great of skills at that time but I had great elevation with my jumpshot. So the older guys would always teach me more about the game, beat me up, pound me on the court. They would treat me like a rookie and I would learn from that. And as I got better and better I started to teach that to the younger kids.
In Brownsville you had just one basket and the ball had no rills, it was bald as my head right now. And I was just in there, I just loved the game. It was great. You had to come out in the snow and rain and we did that. That‘s what it was all about.
What was the New York streetball scene in general like back then?
Back then, when you lost a basketball game that was it. It was all over. You might not play again until ten at night. The court was so crowded and everybody wanted to show their stuff. There were people coming from all over. We were in Brooklyn, so people from the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Staton Island came to Browsville, to a court that we called Sixty-Six Park back then, because that‘s where legends were made. And everyone wanted to go to that park to be somebody. They had the Rucker Pros up in Harlem but we had Sixty-Six Park.
Tell us who played in that park.
We had guys like Jim McMillan, Doc played there, too. We also had guys like Connie Hawkins, Nate “Tiny“ Archibald. We had some of the best players to ever play this game.
What other tournaments were there in the city besides Rucker and Sixty Six Park?
There was a tournament at St. Johns Recreation Centre that was big. But you could basically go to every basketball court in Brooklyn at that time and find that the court was full. It‘s not the same anymore. When you drive by the parks you won‘t see that many kids out there anymore.
You are not the biggest basketball player when it comes to height. Tell us how you changed your shot to overcome that.
My thing was I had a 44‘ vertical leap and I was very strong. I used to shoot straight in front of my face when I brought the ball up. But I realized that that shot got blocked every time. So I started to put the ball up to the side of my head and combined with my vertical I could shoot over the defenders.
I heard you also started shooting over a ladder.
Yeah, I did that to create a higher arc for my shot. I actually did a lot of those things because the guys back then were pretty much jumping out of the building. So if you didn‘t want your shot to be smacked all the way to the other end of the court you better come up with something. That‘s a lesson you learned for the rest of your life.
You probably have told the story a million times but we need to hear it again. Where does “World“ come from?
That name comes from a guy by the name of Herb Smith. This is a guy who is also from Brownsville who introduces everybody who he thinks will come into the NBA, in his mind. So he will give you a nickname. He named guys like Julius “Dr. J“ Erving, Connie “The Hawk“ Hawkins, Phil “The Thrill“ Sellers. He called me “All World“ one time because I was doing 360 slam dunks in games. And I remember, it was in a league game, about two seconds on the clock and I stopped, bounced, did a whole 360 and dunked the ball. And Herb just yelled “All World“. That rang around the whole gym and ever since then I was called “All World“. And that was just in Junior High School.
What made you change your name legally as well?
“B Free“ was the name given to me by my father. So I just changed the Lloyd to “World“. I said to myself that if I should make it professionally in the league with this name that was given to me I would go ahead and wish that the world could be free one day.
But there was a lot of turmoil going on at that time after the war in Vietnam and the Cold War. Was there something philosophical about that name? Were you like a hippie?
No, no, no. I wasn‘t a hippie or any of those kinds of people. What I was was a person that wanted good for everybody. My mom and dad raised me to be kind to everyone, no matter what color or race you are. And at that time I was just hoping that the world could be free. So if people would speak about me they could keep it in their head that the world be free.
