Hubie Brown, a Basketball Lifer

He was born in the depths of the Depression and grew up in a rough-and-tumble part of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a port town 20 miles southwest of Manhattan. His father was a foreman at a shipyard, lost his job and was not too proud to hire on as a janitor at the Catholic high school his son attended. The young man was blessed with athletic talent, starring on the football, baseball and basketball teams. Good enough to earn a scholarship at Niagara University, he played hoops for the Purple Eagles between 1953 and 1955. Has there ever been a college team with three future, very successful, NBA coaches? I refer to Larry Costello, Frank Layden and the subject of the present article, Hubie Brown.

After a couple of years in the Army, Brown sought to make it in pro basketball. His career consisted of eight games with the Rochester Colonels of the Eastern Professional Basketball League. Although the franchise folded early in the 1958 season, he averaged 14 points per game. No NBA team, not even the lowly Minneapolis Lakers (19-53 that year) showed any interest in Brown.

He coached at three high schools in New York and New Jersey, winning one state championship. Then he was an assistant at William & Mary and Duke for five seasons. But Brown was destined to work with the big boys, and an offer from his old Niagara teammate, Costello, was just what he had in mind. Costello’s Milwaukee Bucks—powered by Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—had just won the 1971 NBA title. They reached the Finals again in 1974 but fell to the Boston Celtics.

Costello and Brown had a major disagreement soon thereafter; Costello thought Brown was angling for his job and would say so to his dying day. Brown was no less emphatic in denying it. They did have different coaching philosophies, the main one being that Brown thought Costello (who had been among the last of the NBA’s two-handed set shooters) needed to be more flexible offensively. At any rate, he was out with the Bucks. It was fortuitous timing that the Kentucky Colonels of the ABA needed a replacement for the retiring Babe McCarthy. Brown went down to Louisville and turned a good team into a great one. The 1975 Colonels, led by Louie Dampier, Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore, won their final 10 regular season games and went 12-2 in three rounds of the playoffs, winning the league’s seventh and penultimate championship. A challenge was issued to the Golden State Warriors (who had just ridden Rick Barry, a sustainer of the ABA in its formative seasons, to the NBA title) for a seven-game series. Needless to say, that was not going to happen. Issel, for one, believed his team would have prevailed in such a matchup.

Allow me to pause here and say it’s a shame the Kentucky Colonels were not among the ABA franchises invited to join the NBA after the 1976 merger. Average home attendance that season was 8,727, and crowds of more than 16,000 filled Freedom Hall in the 1975 ABA Finals. I admit that the ABA had some weak sisters, but when the NFL and AFL announced their merger in 1966, all members of the junior league were allowed to join. No fair!

Brown, by then a proven commodity, served as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks from 1977 through 1981 and the New York Knicks from 1983 through early 1987. Pro sports, as he well knew, is a cut-throat business, and when those teams faltered he was told to hit the proverbial road. He was demanding on his players, although most cooperated and followed his directives. I have mentioned how Costello came to despise him. (“Hubie is a real rotten apple. A horrible person. He’ll do what he wants to get what he wants.”) Here’s Mike Storen, former GM of the Hawks: “He’s a sick man. He wants to control everything, and if you get in his way, he’ll get you. He plots. He schemes. It’s all very deliberate.” And George Cunningham of the Atlanta Constitution: “Hubie’s a great coach, but he’s such a horrible egomaniac that he can’t stand any criticism.”

His last two full seasons with the Knicks (they went 24-58 and 23-59), he was a member of a TV broadcasting team during the playoffs and proved himself quite adept. Sometimes as the play-by-play man and sometimes as the lead analyst, Brown showed an unparalleled ability to break down on-court strategies and educate fans without being condescending. He had a knack for explaining X’s and O’s and telling viewers what players ought to do in a given situation. As the years went by, peers and fans began to regard him as a basketball professor. Despite knowing the game so thoroughly, he could show genuine enthusiasm upon seeing a good play; in post-game interviews with players and coaches, their respect for him was evident.

More than 15 years after his last coaching job, he got an offer from the Memphis Grizzlies. Despite being 69, he was hired by general manager Jerry West, and who had more bona fides than him? The Grizzlies went 50-32 in 2004, earning Brown his second NBA coach of the year award. After a slow start the next season, he quit, citing health problems. He had coached his last game, but he had another two decades dispensing hoops wisdom at the mic. Brown, inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005, worked less and less often. Travel wore on him, but when it was game time he was always ready. Even in his late 80s, he was in tune with the much-changed and ever-faster NBA game. Consider the superb Vin Scully doing Los Angeles Dodgers games as late as 2016. It’s not the same because baseball is a quieter, slower paced and more serene sport. But attend an NBA game, and you will be assaulted by loud horns and piped-in noise almost from start to finish; there are distractions galore. Unrattled by such sensory overload, Brown was able to focus on the game and present it to fans watching at home or in sports bars. His final game was between the Bucks and the Philadelphia 76ers on February 9, 2025. Mike Breen, who sat at courtside with him, had lots of kind words to say. And it’s indicative that several players came to Brown after the game and gave him a warm shake; the referees did the same, handing him the game ball. He responded modestly, reminding them how he used to lead the ABA and NBA in technical fouls.

OK, here is something I would dearly love to know. In late 2020 and early 2021, what did Brown think of the NBA allowing “Only Black Lives Matter” to be painted in large lettering on every court league-wide because of perceived racism and police brutality? Guys (most prominently the very sanctimonious LeBron James) wearing OBLM warm-up shirts and so-called social justice messages on their jerseys? Kneeling and looking down while the national anthem was being played? And even refusing to play (Bucks against Orlando Magic on August 26, 2020)? Similar empty and vacuous things went on in NFL and MLB stadiums. I am not aware of any comment—pro or con—Brown made during that time, but he must have had an opinion.

Brown at Niagara University…

Brown with the Rochester Colonels in 1958…

The 1972 Milwaukee Bucks. Brown is top left, his friend/nemesis Larry Costello is top right…

Brown at his introductory press conference as coach of the ABA’s Kentucky Colonels…

Artis Gilmore, Louie Dampier, Dan Issel and some cute kid…

Brown, then with the Atlanta Hawks, about to get T-ed up…

Brown with the New York Knicks…