Short answer:
I’m not really sure. I just thought he had a cool name and apparently he used to play for the 76ers back in the day.
Long answer:
According to Wikipedia…
World B. Free (born Lloyd Bernard Free on December 9, 1953) is an American retired professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1975 to 1988. Free was known as the “Prince of Midair” as well as “All-World”…
Free played for the San Diego Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets in the National Basketball Association. He got his name from his days in Brooklyn, where a friend nicknamed him “World” because of his 44-inch vertical leap and 360-degree dunks. Free was known for his “rainbow” jump shots, referring to the extreme arch of the ball during the shot. He was also known for taking high-risk shots and playing flamboyantly…
Free averaged 20.3 points per game over 13 seasons in the NBA. His best season was 1979–80 with the Clippers, averaging 30.2 points per game, as well as 4.2 assists per game and 3.5 rebounds per game in 68 games. He was an All-Star that season as well, although the Clippers failed to make the playoffs.
During the 1984–85 season, Free became the 39th player in league history to surpass 15,000 career points…
On December 8, 1981, a day before his 28th birthday, he legally changed his first name to World.
According to Free, “the fellas back in Brownsville gave me the nickname “World” when I was in junior high… they just started calling me ‘all-world’, because all-city and all-county and things like that weren’t good enough. Finally they just started calling me World… I’m still the same guy I was when I was Lloyd, though. I’ll say what I’m going to do, and then I’ll go out and do it.”
Wikipedia
And in case you’re not a huge fan of words, here are some videos I found on YouTube to give you a better idea of who Free is.
The first one is a “mixtape” of Free during his career.
The next video is kind of like a “mixtape” but also includes former NBA player Andre Miller’s thoughts on the Prince of Midair.
And these last two are clips of Free sitting down with the 76ers and telling stories about Dr. J (aka Julius Erving, ever heard of him?) and Darryl Dawkins when they played together on the 76ers. Both of which are pretty interesting.
Nowadays, it seems as though Free is director of player development and a community ambassador for the Philadelphia 76ers, also according to Wikipedia. He also recently did a barbershop-style interview with Landry Shamet, point guard for the 76ers.
The video was kind of short, but it does look like this is the first episode of a series called The Line-Up. Kind of a cool play on words with a barbershop lineup and a basketball lineup. Get it?
Anyway, this is the guy my website is named after. It started out as just a cool name, but it seems like Free is actually a pretty cool cat himself.
May the World B. Free.
Audio Dope 