ESPN NBA commentator and former NBA head coach Hubie Brown will be calling his final game this season at the age of 91.
In an interview on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina, ESPN President Burke Magnus revealed that Brown would be stepping aside.
‘We are going to give Hubie one last shot on a game,’ Magnus told the podcast. ‘He deserves that. We think the world of him.
‘I think it is absolutely remarkable the level in which he still calls games at age 90-plus. I don’t mean to be purposely mysterious here but we are going to honor Hubie during the regular season at some point to be determined and send him off in style.’
According to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, Brown is not scheduled to call any games this season. But sources told the outlet that he will be assigned a final game at a date to-be-determined.
It’s expected that Brown will be placed alongside ESPN play-by-play man Mike Breen for the game.
Basketball legend Hubie Brown will be calling his final NBA game this season at age 91
Brown (L) poses for a photo with Dave Pasch at an NBA game in Philadelphia in February 2024
This revelation comes just weeks after Hubie’s son, Brendan Brown, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 54.
Brown has one of the most legendary careers in the history of basketball. He was briefly a player in late 1950’s before turning his attention to coaching.
After coaching high school in the mid-50s and throughout the early to mid 60s, Brown served as an assistant at William & Mary before taking the same position at Duke before they were a fully-fledged national powerhouse.
He then left for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, where he was an assistant under Larry Costello and coached the likes of Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Then he jumped to head coach with the American Basketball Association’s Kentucky Colonels – where he won the ABA championship in 1975 over the Indiana Pacers with the likes of Dan Issel, Louie Dampier, and Artis Gilmore on the team.
But with the 1976 merger between the ABA and NBA, the Colonels owner agreed to fold the team in exchange for $3million in cash.
Briefly out of a job, Brown then jumped to the Atlanta Hawks where he coached for five seasons. He put up a record of 199-208 and won NBA Coach of the Year in 1978 before he was fired with three games left in the 1980-81 season.
Brown went the whole season without a coaching job, but began broadcasting NBA games with the USA Network and CBS.
Brown, seen here as coach of the Atlanta Hawks, during a game against Boston in 1980
Brown coaches the New York Knicks against the Washington Bullets in 1984
Brown, seen here coaching one of his final games for Memphis on November 10, 2004
He did that for one season before being hired as the head coach of the New York Knicks in 1982. The Knicks reached the playoffs in the first two seasons under Brown, but slipped in the 84-85 and 85-86 seasons.
While that did lead to the Knicks drafting superstar Patrick Ewing in 1985, Brown did not last much longer at Madison Square Garden. He was fired just 16 games into the 1986-87 season and returned to broadcasting.
Brown moved to calling games full-time with CBS until the network stopped covering the NBA following the 1990 NBA Finals. From there, he called local games with the Philadelphia 76ers and the Detroit Pistons before joining TNT in the early 1990s.
He continued with TNT until he was hired by the Memphis Grizzlies as their head coach in 2002 – 16 years after his last NBA coaching job. Across three seasons, Brown turned the team around from a 28-46 record in the 2002-03 season to a 50-32 record and a playoff appearance the following campaign in 03-04.
But questions about his health led the 71-year-old to resign on Thanksgiving Day of 2004, citing ‘unexpected health-related issues… [that were] absolutely nonexistent at the beginning of the season.’
Brown returned to broadcasting with ABC as their top NBA analyst, where he’s been ever since – working with the likes of Al Michaels, Mike Breen, Mike Tirico, Mark Jones, and Dave Pasch.
Brown was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005, the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, and the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame in 2022.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .