Longtime NBA color commentator Hubie Brown will call one last game for ESPN this season before retiring, ESPN president Burke Magnus stated during an appearance on the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast (story via SI.com).
“I don’t mean to be purposely mysterious here, but we’re going to honor Hubie this year during the regular season at some point to be determined and send him off in style,” Magnus said. “I don’t think there’s a single human being who’s ever had a longer association with professional basketball.”
A two-time NBA Coach of the Year, Brown began calling games in the 1980s and has been with ESPN since 2004. He turned 91 years old in September.
We have a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- After reporting last week that the NBA is seriously considering turning the All-Star Game into a four-team tournament this February, Shams Charania of ESPN has provided more details on the format. According to Charania, the expectation is that the two semifinal games will have target scores of 40 points, while the final will have a target of 25 points. The idea is to emulate pickup games, with “quick-burst” contests and the winners advancing to the championship.
- Defining a “redrafted” player as one who broke out with a second team rather than the club that drafted him, Mark Deeks of HoopsHype identifies nine of the NBA’s top redrafted players, including Hawks guard Dyson Daniels, Raptors wing Ochai Agbaji, and Thunder swingman Isaiah Joe, among others.
- Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report ranks the top 10 non-max contracts in the NBA this season, highlighting a few players who are still on rookie contracts (including recent Rookies of the Year Victor Wembanyama and Paolo Banchero) as well as a handful of veterans (such as Austin Reaves and Derrick White).
- NBA insider Jake Fischer, formerly of Yahoo Sports, will be joining Marc Stein’s Substack, Stein confirmed today on Twitter.
Man, I’m sad we’re losing Hubie Brown; we desperately need people like him teaching the game. We don’t have anyone left like that anymore. It’s become really difficult to watch the content driven league the last few years, in my opinion, and not having people like Hubie Brown around drives us further into it
People like Dr Jack Ramsay and Hubie Brown is part of how I learned to love the game. I wish Pat Riley would get back on commentary for a couple of years here and there, but I get why that isn’t going to happen
Hopefully, I’ll be aware of what game it will be when he calls it b/c I missed a lot of his last couple of years, and I want to make sure I get a chance to hear him talk about the game we all love 1 last time. Hope they’ll have Marc Jones on with him too, b/c he is basically the only competent basketball announcer they still have, and that’s a booth with 2 people that love basketball at all levels
Billy Donovan will be looking for a new job soon.
What’s sad is that we *could* have guys like Hubie, but we get the “content driven” stuff instead. Jeff Van Gundy, for example, knows a lot about the game but chooses to play the clown when commentating. I assume it’s partly his choice and partly the networks encouraging that.
Nice shout out to Dr. Jack. Loved his commentary and analysis appearances back in the day. We will miss Hubie.
Spot on. Love the games he calls and loved watching him get t’d up when he was coach of the Knicks. At 91 he’s still amazing.
I’m on board with literally anything they want to try with the all star game, it’s been absurdly unwatchable for years now.
Seriously, they should just dump it. The players ruined it. They didn’t care about their fans.
I well remember, as a school kid in Canada, listening to Van Vance call the games of the 1975 Kentucky Colonels on WHAS Louisville. Hubie Brown coached three other Hall of Famers — Gilmore, Issel and Dampier — to the ABA Championship.
Fifty years later that remains one of my most cherished memories from a lifetime of being a sports fan. Thank you, Hubie. Stay well, sir.
If Hubie was coaching right now then he would be the best coach in the league. Just saying the coaches are trash now
Somebody in his orbit should get Hubie doing some podcasts. His choice of topics, his schedule. At 91 its time to start seriously thinking about his legacy. Hubie could still teach us more.