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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.
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. The next season, his first full one in charge, the Grizzlies improved by 22 wins with a 50-32 record and made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. That success led to Brown being named Coach of the Year for a second time.
Brown’s tenure in Memphis wasn’t for long. Twelve games into the 2004-05 season he resigned, citing medical reasons.
Out of coaching again, Brown was hired by ABC for their NBA coverage and called the 2005 and 2006 NBA Finals. He’s been a part of ABC/ESPN telecasts ever since. For his contributions to the sport, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005 as a contributor. He’s also a part of the College Basketball Hall of Fame and National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame.
It hasn’t been an easy past six months for Brown. In June, his wife, Claire, passed away at age 87. His son, Brendan, died earlier this month due to health complications at age 54.