Hubert Jude "Hubie" Brown
(born September 25, 1933 in Hazleton
, Pennsylvania
, USA) is a former basketball coach and a current television analyst. Brown is a two-time
NBA Coach of the Year, the honors being separated by 26 years.
Brown is
in the Basketball
Hall of Fame
.
Early life and career
He moved
to Elizabeth, New
Jersey
at the age of 3 and was raised there, graduating
from St. Mary of the Assumption High
School
in 1951.
Hubie
Brown played college basketball
at Niagara
University
, graduating in 1955 with a degree in
education. After leaving Niagara, Brown joined the
U.S. Army where he joined the Army's
basketball team. After being honorably discharged in 1958, Brown
briefly played for the
Rochester
Colonels of the Eastern Professional Basketball League (the
forerunner to the
Continental Basketball
Association) before they folded after just eight games. He
averaged 13.8 points per game in his brief stint as a pro and was
an excellent defender as a player.
While at Niagara, Brown was a teammate (and roommate) of former
Utah Jazz coach
Frank Layden.
Brown's
defensive mentality would carry on into his coaching career, which
began in 1955 at St. Mary Academy in Little
Falls
, New York where he coached both basketball and
baseball. He spent nine years at the high school level,
including Cranford High
School
in Cranford, New Jersey
and Fair Lawn High School
in Fair Lawn, New Jersey
before becoming an assistant coach for one season
at the College of William and Mary
in 1968. The following season, Brown joined Duke
University
as an
assistant coach.
Milwaukee Bucks
Brown coached at Duke until
1972,
when he joined the
NBA as an assistant coach
for the
Milwaukee Bucks under
Larry Costello. Milwaukee made the
NBA Finals in 1974 with future Hall of Famers
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and
Oscar Robertson, but fell in seven games to
the
Boston Celtics, who were led by
their own superstars:
Dave Cowens,
John Havlicek,
Jo Jo White and future Bucks coach
Don Nelson.
Coaching career
Kentucky Colonels
After two seasons in the NBA, Brown was given his first
professional-level head coaching opportunity – the head coach
position with the
Kentucky
Colonels of the
American Basketball
Association. Brown led the Colonels to the
1975 ABA Championship. Brown continued as
the Colonels' coach until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976 when the
Colonels franchise folded, one of two ABA teams that did not join
the NBA (the
Spirits of St.
Louis being the other).
Atlanta Hawks
Brown then rejoined the NBA as head coach of the
Atlanta Hawks, going 31-51 in his first season
with the Hawks. But by the
1977-78
season, the Hawks had rebounded into a .500 team, finishing
41-41 and earning
Coach of
the Year honors for Brown.
New York Knicks
Brown continued to coach the Hawks, leading them to a Central
Division Title in the
1979-80
season, before joining the
New York
Knicks in
1982, succeeding
long-time coach
Red Holtzman. He stayed
with the Knicks until he was fired in
1986 after starting the season 4-12.
After reaching the playoffs in each of Brown's first two seasons,
the Knicks plummeted to 24-58 in
1984-85 and 23-59 in
1985-86. But there were circumstances
that were far beyond Brown's control that hastened the downfall.
Star forward
Bernard King suffered a
devastating knee injury in March 1985 in a game against the
Kansas City Kings, not fully
recovering for two seasons, while
Patrick
Ewing, the top overall pick in the
1985 NBA Draft, missed 32 games in an
injury-plagued rookie season. Brown left the Knicks at the
beginning of the
1986-87 season,
succeeded by
Bob Hill.
Memphis Grizzlies
During the
2002-03 season, Brown
was again tapped to be a head coach in the NBA, this time by
Jerry West with the
Memphis Grizzlies, who fired coach
Sidney Lowe after an 0-8 start. The
Grizzlies' choice of Brown was quite controversial at the time;
Hubie Brown was the oldest coach in the NBA at the age of 69.
Brown finished the season with a 28-46 record with the team, at the
time the team's record for wins. However, the team underwent a
complete turnaround for the
2003-04
season, finishing 50-32 and making the
playoffs for the first time in team
history. Brown was again named the NBA's Coach of the Year.
However, by the
2004-05 season,
there were again concerns about Brown's health and age. Brown was
given medical clearance to start the season, but was forced to
delegate much work to his assistant coaches, including his son,
Brendan Brown. This led to an incident between Brendan Brown and
Jason Williams when
Williams snapped at Brown during the fourth quarter of a game early
on in the season. Williams eventually apologized, but the Grizzlies
were beginning to struggle during the season, starting 5-7.
Brown then unexpectedly resigned from the Grizzlies on
Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2004. In a
statement, he cited "unexpected health-related issues... [that
were] absolutely nonexistent at the beginning of the season."
Details of the specific "health-related issues" were not announced.
Shortly afterward
Mike Fratello was
announced as the new Grizzlies coach, marking the second time in
his career that he had succeeded Brown at an NBA head coaching
position.
Soon after Brown's unexpected departure, it was reported by Ronald
Tillery of
The Commercial
Appeal (Memphis' main newspaper) that a combination of
negative attitudes among James Posey, Jason Williams, and
Bonzi Wells led to his leaving. Brown coached
his team with a 10-man rotation which meant that players got
smaller amounts of playing time. This reportedly upset the three
players who felt cheated for not getting more time.
Broadcasting career
Brown then turned back to the broadcasting booth. He had been the
lead basketball analyst for
CBS (teaming
with play-by-play man
Dick Stockton)
in
1988. Brown remained with CBS
until the end of their NBA coverage following the
1990 NBA Finals. He worked on the local
broadcasts for the
Philadelphia
76ers and the
Detroit Pistons
before joining
TNT in the early 1990s.
Brown continued anchoring TNT's basketball coverage through the
2001-02 season.
On December 7, Brown signed with
ABC as
their top NBA analyst, originally working alongside
Al Michaels (until his departure to NBC) and,
subsequently,
Mike Breen on some
regular-season and playoff games, including the
2005 NBA Finals and
2006 NBA Finals. He currently does work as
an analyst, along with
Mike Tirico for
games on ESPN and ABC.
Hall of Fame
In 2005,
Brown was inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor.
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