Whole World Has Taken Its Best Shot, but He’s Still Free

World B. Free, everything that’s “wrong” with the NBA all wrapped up in one stocky, balding, gap-toothed bundle of fun, breezed through Inglewood Tuesday night.

He has been here before.

In 1979, the Laker public relations department announced a “Stop Lloyd Free Night” at the Forum. World was named Lloyd then, and he played for the San Diego Clippers. The gimmick was that if the Lakers could hold the free-wheeling Free under 20 points, everyone in the house would get a free ticket.

Free scored 42, and the Clippers won.

Several other NBA teams held unsuccessful “Stop Lloyd Free” nights that season.

“Until they started losing their money,” Free said. “Then they said, ‘There’s no stopping this guy.’ Heh heh.”

In ‘82, at the Lakers’ home opener, the players were given their championship rings in a pregame ceremony, then were blown off the wood by lowly Golden State. The Warriors were led by . . . ?

“I got about 39 or so that night,” Free said with a chuckle. Actually, he scored 30 points, making 12 of 16 shots from the floor.

Tuesday night, the Lakers were given their championship rings again in a pregame ceremony. Then World B. Free, this time leading a roving band of Cleveland gym rats, spoiled the party again. He lit up Laker guard Byron Scott for 16 first-half points, making 7 of 10.

“Well, see, Byron said something in the papers after the first time we played them when he was a rookie,” World explained. “I’d never seen the man before, and he started talking about the job he did (defending against Free).

“You just don’t say that kind of stuff about the older fellas, because they remember it in the side of their head. That rejuvenates an older person, I’ll tell you. Like the Celtics talking about Kareem. So that (revenge) was my personal goal last night.”

Whatever the special occasion, World B. Free almost always has a good time in Los Angeles, and in most other cities, but that doesn’t make him a good guy in the critics’ eyes.

They see him as an undisciplined gunner. They say he plays no defense. They say he’s a hotdog.

They might even point out that he’s a ghetto kid who never picked up a lot of urbane sophistication, like a Dr. J, and that it’s guys like Free who perpetuate the ghetto image the league would like to shake.

If you want to know the truth, though, the truth is that the critics are wrong. World B. Free has been one of the NBA’s greatest assets for 10 years now.

His one-man Twilight Zone offense has helped several bad teams on the floor and at the box office. And if you’re looking for a little charm and personality and flair to spice up your league, World is your man.

Not everyone would agree. World is thinking of retiring after this season, and when I asked him why he had never made a big announcement, so teams could hold farewell ceremonies for him as he makes his last circuit around the league, he said:

“I don’t think they would do that for me. I just wasn’t one of those kinds of guys, I guess. You know, I put on a great show for ‘em, but I don’t think they ever accepted me that way (as a legitimate star).”

At least partly, Free has been a victim of circumstance. He was caught up in the circus atmosphere of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1975-’78, then exiled to San Diego, then to Golden State, then to Cleveland.

At each dismal stop, Free showed up with a smile, a positive attitude and a bulging bag of offensive tricks. After a decade of official and unofficial Stop World Free nights, his scoring average is 21.4.

At Cleveland, he joined a wretched franchise, assumed a leadership role and helped pull the Cavaliers into the playoffs last season.

“I was like a new sergeant on the block,” Free said.

He is also like a big brother. The other players like him. They know he’s a star, that he changed his name from Lloyd to World, that he drives a Rolls and a Mercedes.

But they also know he’s the same old World he was 20 years ago. This is a millionaire who, every summer when the season ends, goes home.

“I don’t like planes, and after flying all season, I’m through,” World said. “I just never go on trips, if you’re talking about Bee-hamas and all these things. I’ve seen enough. Nah, I just normally go straight to Brownsville.”

Brownsville is a treacherous ghetto section of Brooklyn. I doubt that there is another big star in any American sport who still lives in such a place. Most flee to mansions and penthouses and never look back. World never left.

“I just go back, mind my business, stay at my mom’s place, see my friends, cool on out. I enjoy myself. That’s fun to me.

“I see the fellas every day--Pearl Washington, Jerry Reynolds, all of them are out at the parks, games going.”

World will play in pickup games, or just shoot, for hours, with the neighborhood kids.

“I’m just cool, trying to enjoy myself. I don’t try to put on no air about anything. I talk to everyone.”

He never even considered buying a home elsewhere.

“Not me. I wouldn’t live in it,” Free said. “I’d be in Brownsville all the time. I’m respected out there very, very much. That’s something I always wanted all my life. Just to be respected. That’s all.”