Born Free And Living Up To His Name

But at other times there were disastrous strings of missed shots, air balls and turnovers. It didn't seem to matter whether he was hot or cold, he made purists cringe. And inevitably Free would be yanked back to the bench.

Gene Shue, who coached Free and the Sixers before being fired six games into last season, says, "I never had any doubts about Lloyd's ability, and often when the game was on the line I would go to Lloyd, not Doc or George. But sometimes there just weren't enough basketballs. It got to where we thought about posting a signup sheet for the ball." And when Billy Cunningham took over the team, it was clear that there would be little space left for Free's name.

Shue, watching from exile, knew this. He also knew that when he accepted the job as coach of the Clippers, who moved west from Buffalo last summer, he would be inheriting a strange mixture of players from the 27-55 Braves and the 32-50 Celtics, who had made a multiple-player deal. "When you look at your group and see players like Sidney Wicks and Swen Nater," says Shue, "you know that they are there for some reason. I knew we couldn't win. But I also knew that Lloyd Free was a winner."

When the Clippers put in a call to Shue's former employers about obtaining Free, the 76ers didn't exactly drive a hard bargain. They let Free go for a first-round draft choice—in 1984. That is almost nothing. "That is nothing," says Shue in pure astonishment. "Lloyd is one of the most talented players in the league, and they just gave him away."

"There must be something wrong with Free," said one assistant coach last week. He was scouting the Clippers in New Orleans in a game in which Free hit on 11 of 21 shots and 12 of 14 from the foul line. "Twenty teams didn't want him." And as San Diego cemented a 114-107 victory over the Jazz, the same man said, "Hey, they're no slouches. That's a good team out there."

The idea is shocking those people around the league who insist that the Clippers are no more than a one-man, one-on-one circus. But the team has won nine of its last 16 games, and even though the Clippers are in last place in the Pacific Division, the NBA's toughest, seven of the league's 22 teams have worse records than San Diego.

The Clippers get almost 50 points a game from their starting guards—Smith, a two-time All-Star, is averaging 21—and their third guard, rookie Freeman Williams, last year's NCAA scoring champion from Portland State, is beginning to come on. They are also the second-best rebounding team in the NBA. Studious Kermit Washington, who is well read in Oriental philosophy, is the league's best offensive rebounding forward. The center tandem of Nater and Kevin Kunnert is good for a combined 16 points and 15 rebounds a game. And the small forwards, Nick Weatherspoon and Wicks, two of Shue's reclamation projects, are playing solidly, scoring in or near double figures and moving the ball out to the speedy guards. "This team represents a mesh of players from different backgrounds," says Wicks. "What a mesh."

The unanticipated success of the team has made a happy return for pro basketball to San Diego, where it had failed three times. In 1975, when San Diego had its last team, crowds averaged 2,616 at the Sports Arena; the Clippers are now pulling in an average of 8,013 a night. And the big promotions—the Laserium light show and the Great Jell-O Jump, in which 25 people will simultaneously wallow in an enormous Dempster Dumpster full of blue Jell-O for keys to new cars—are still to come.

Free thinks he is all the promotion the Clippers need. "I'm their card," he says. "In San Diego people come right out of their seats when I do my thing. Right out. Basketball's crazy. People talk about winning, but it's not really about winning. Times have changed. Today it's a show. People want to see that razzle-dazzle—guys taking crazy shots and hitting them. You have to have some jazz in the game, 'cause if you don't, people won't come out."

Shue made it clear from the day Free joined the team, Friday the 13th of October, that Lloyd was his man. This would have caused problems on many teams, but the Clippers understood their needs. "We had to believe he'd help us, no matter what we read or heard about him," says Washington.