Former NBA coach and longtime broadcaster Hubie Brown is in his final season calling NBA games, ESPN’s Content President Burke Magnus announced.
“We are going to give Hubie one last shot on a game,” Magnus said of the 91-year-old Brown on the “SI Media with Jimmy Traina” podcast.
“He deserves that. We think the world of him. I think it’s absolutely remarkable the level he still calls games at age 90-plus.”
Magnus added that ESPN intends on honoring Brown at some point during the regular season to “send him off in style.”
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ESPN broadcaster Hubie Brown (left) and Ryan Ruocco during an NBA game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center. (Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports)
While Brown played in the league for a bit, he went into coaching high school basketball in 1955, where he would spend a decade before eventually taking assistant jobs at William & Mary and Duke.
Brown returned to the NBA in 1972, joining the Milwaukee Bucks’ staff to help coach a team that included Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and others.
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Brown spent two years with Milwaukee before making the move to the ABA in 1974 to lead the Kentucky Colonels. He spent another two years there before the ABA merged with the NBA before the 1976-77 campaign.
Back in the league, Brown spent five years coaching the Atlanta Hawks, five seasons with the New York Knicks and ended his coaching career with the Memphis Grizzlies for three seasons.
ESPN broadcaster Hubie Brown during an NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and Phoenix Suns at U.S. Airways Center. (Mark J. Rebilas/USA Today Sports)
While Brown was jumping from coaching gig to coaching gig, he would take broadcasting jobs in between his stints. After being dismissed by the Knicks, for instance, he was a regular television broadcaster.
Brown was a part of NBA on CBS before Turner Sports bought the league’s media rights in the early 1990s. He joined the Grizzlies in 2002, 16 years after his previous coaching job with the Knicks, though he left the job 12 games into the 2004-05 season for medical reasons.
From there, Brown returned to broadcasting again, joining ABC for its coverage of the league, which included calling the 2005 and 2006 NBA Finals. He hasn’t left ABC/ESPN since.
Basketball has been a true passion for Brown, who continues to provide expert analysis during broadcasts. However, his personal life has been tumultuous of late. His wife, Claire, died at age 87 in June. Heart complications also took his son, Brendan, earlier this month at the age of 54.
ESPN broadcaster Hubie Brown during an NBA game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center. (Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports)
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Brown is a member of the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Hall of Fame for his contributions to the game. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.