Hubie Brown, 91, in final season calling NBA games with ESPN

Longtime NBA broadcaster and former coach Hubie Brown is in his final season calling games, ESPN’s content president Burke Magnus said this week.

Appearing on the “SI Media with Jimmy Traina” podcast, Magnus said of the 91-year-old Brown, “I don’t think there’s a single human being that’s ever had a longer association with professional basketball.”

“We are going to give Hubie one last shot on a game. He deserves that,” Magnus said. “We think the world of him. I think it’s absolutely remarkable the level he still calls games at age 90-plus … We’re going to honor Hubie this year during the regular season at some point to be determined and send him off in style.”

After a short playing career, Brown entered coaching in 1955 at the high school level. After a decade, he moved up to the collegiate ranks as an assistant at William & Mary and Duke before joining the staff of a Milwaukee Bucks team in 1972 that featured future Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson.

Brown earned his first head coaching job in 1975 with the American Basketball Association’s Kentucky Colonels, who won the ABA Championship in his first season. Following the ABA-NBA merger, Brown was hired as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks. He was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1978 before being fired late in the 1980-81 season.

Following the retirement of legendary head coach Red Holzman in 1982, Brown was hired by the New York Knicks. He coached parts of five seasons before being fired early in the 1986-87 season.

After taking on broadcasting gigs in between jobs, Brown became a regular on television following his dismissal from the Knicks. He joined the NBA on CBS coverage until the league’s media rights moved to Turner Sports in the early 1990s.

ABC television basketball analyst Hubie Brown goes over stats while sitting at the scorer’s table before Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland on June 9, 2015. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

In 2002, 16 years after his last NBA coaching job, Brown, at age 69, was hired by the Memphis Grizzlies after Sidney Lowe was dismissed following an 0-8 start….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/hubie-brown-91-in-final-season-calling-nba-games-with-espn-154753471.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-11-21 15:47:00

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