Basketball Hall of Famer Hubie Brown calls his last NBA game at 91 years old

Hubie Brown took the sideline to call his last NBA game on Sunday at 91 years old.

A Basketball Hall of Famer, Brown has been a fixture on NBA sidelines either as a coach or a broadcaster since 1972 when he took his first NBA coaching job as an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1972. Fittingly, his final game on the mic on Sunday for ESPN on ABC was in Milwaukee as the Bucks hosted the Philadelphia 76ers.

Prior to the game, Brown reflected on the start of his broadcasting career in 1981 with USA Network. He said that he got a call from Bucks play-by-play man Eddie Doucette to gauge his interest in the job. He accepted and called games alongside Al Albert for USA, which was the NBA’s first cable broadcasting partner.

When he took the broadcast table on Sunday, players from both teams including Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Bobby Portis Jr. and Brook Lopez stopped to shake Brown’s hand and pay their respects.

Just before tip, Brown reflected on his broadcasting career alongside play-by-play announcer Mike Breen.

“I was frightened to death,” Brown said after ABC ran video from his first broadcast with USA. “Who am I to be doing an NBA game?

Breen then asked him what was on his mind as he prepared to call his last game. Brown credited former Bucks coach Larry Costello with preparing him for his career as a coach and a broadcaster.

Throughout Sunday’s broadcast, ABC paid tribute to Brown with archive footage from his coaching and broadcasting career.

Brown’s impact as a coach and broadcaster

Brown spent two seasons as an assistant for Costello from 1972-74 coaching Bucks teams featuring Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. After the Bucks went to the NBA finals in 1974, Brown left to take his first head coaching job with the ABA’s Kentucky Colonels.

After three seasons with the Colonels that included winning the 1975 ABA championship, Brown worked four seasons as the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks. He coached the Hawks to three .500-plus seasons, but was fired in 1981 after his first losing campaign on the job.

Thus launched his broadcasting career with USA, which lasted a single season before he was back on an NBA sideline as the head coach of the New York Knicks. Brown coached the Knicks from 1982 until he was dismissed after a 4-12 start in 1987. Then, his broadcasting career began in earnest.

Known as a teacher of the game, Brown took his acumen back to the booth, where he became a fixture of NBA broadcasts calling games for CBS and then TNT until 2002. But he wasn’t done coaching.

Brown returned for the final time to an NBA sideline as the head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies for two-plus seasons from 2002-04. He then retired from coaching 12 games into the 2004-05 season, citing health issues at 71 years old. But he wasn’t done with basketball.

He joined ESPN and ABC after stepping down from the Grizzlies to work as a game analyst and has called games ever since, including alongside the network’s top play-by-play announcers Breen and Al Michaels.

Brown was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2005. He was a two-time NBA coach of the year, once each with the the Hawks and Grizzlies, and finished his career with a 528-559 record across the ABA and NBA.

He’s also a member of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame who spent time on college sidelines as an assistant with Duke and William & Mary. He played three seasons as a reserve from Niagara from 1952-55.

But for multiple generations of fans, Brown is best known for the wisdom he imparted in the broadcast booth for NBA fans watching the game in their living rooms.