MARCUS BROWN - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Marcus
Brown
63

A champ in
six countries
When a player – in this case, Marcus
Brown – sees his scoring
numbers increase from 8.9
points to 18.1 to 22.4 and finally
to 26.4 points during his college
years, one would expect that
he’d have a good chance in the NBA, to say the very
least. When Portland picked Brown 46th in the 1996
NBA Draft out of Murray State University, everything
seemed to be going as planned.
Standing at 1.93 meters, Brown, who was born
April 3, 1974 in West Memphis, Arkansas, was a classic
shooting guard, a very coveted species. But he would
not be the first or the last rookie to have a rather unfortunate
stint in Portland. (I can remember Drazen
Petrovic, for instance). He played just 21 games and averaged
3.9 points, even though his shooting percentages
were acceptable: 39.5% on two-pointers and 40.6%
on threes. One of his few good experiences there was
interacting with The Tsar, Arvydas Sabonis. “Sabas”
showed a young Brown that there were great players in
Europe and good basketball there.
Very few people have the mental strength to turn disappointment
into opportunity. After the bad experience
in Portland and a frustrated chance with the Memphis
Grizzlies, where he didn’t play a single game, at the end
of the 1997-98 season Brown decided to cross the pond
and look for his opportunity in Europe. With his low
numbers in Portland, Brown could not look for a super
contract from the best European teams. But Brown was
smart, so he searched instead for a chance to shine, to
play a lot of minutes, and to show what he could do. He
signed for Pau-Orthez of France and in six games he was
already averaging 20.5 points. His team won the French
League title, thanks especially to him, but in the last game
of the final series, he suffered a serious knee injury.
After a year-long recovery, Brown tried to get back into
the NBA, this time with the Detroit Pistons, for the 1999-
2000 season. He had played just six games and averaged
1.7 points when he received an offer from Limoges. Brown
didn’t hesitate to travel back to France. Time would prove
that it was one of the best decisions of his career.
Triple crown in Limoges
Limoges had signed Dusko Ivanovic as head coach,
and with Brown as its star, everything turned out great.
Limoges won the French Cup, the French League and
also the Korac Cup. Brown was the top scorer (16.4
points in the national league, 20.9 in the Korac Cup) on
a great team completed by the likes of Yann Bonato,
Stephane Dumas, Harper Williams, Frederic Weis and
Carl Thomas.
Brown was decisive in the Korac Cup. In 10 games, he
scored between 21 and 28 points as many as five times.
But he saved his best for the title game against Unicaja
Malaga. In the first game, played in Limoges on March
22, the hosts beat Unicaja 80-58 thanks to Brown’s 31
points on almost-perfect shooting: 6 of 8 two-pointers,
5 of 8 threes and 4 of 5 free throws, plus 3 assists and
4 steals. With an advantage of 22 points, Limoges had
no problem lifting the trophy. Unicaja won by just nine
at home (60-51) and Brown was the top scorer again for
his team with 18 points, including 3 of 4 threes. It was his
fourth trophy in Europe. But that was only the start.
101 greats of european basketball
Marcus Brown
B

Vladimir Stankovic
His high level with Limoges caught the attention of
several European teams, and the fastest one to act was
Benetton Treviso. Brown signed for the Italian team that
also had Marcelo Nicola, Riccardo Pittis, Denis Marconato,
Massimo Bulleri, Petar Naumoski, Bostjan Nachbar
and Jorge Garbajosa. With that roster, the goal could
only be the title of the newly-founded EuroLeague. But
Benetton could only reach the quarterfinals, falling to
AEK Athens 2-1 in the series. Brown did what was expected
of him, scoring 20.3 points per game (42.4% on
threes), but the team couldn’t advance.
After three seasons with three different teams,
Brown started a series of two-year contracts with his
signing for Efes Pilsen of Turkey in 2001-02. At Efes, he
delivered as a scorer with 19.6 and 18.7 points, respectively,
but the Turkish team, despite its ambition and effort,
wasn’t able to fulfill Brown’s goal: to contend for titles
with the best in Europe. When CSKA Moscow called
him for the 2003-04 season, it looked like Brown’s time
had finally come. The Russian team was experiencing a
huge expansion, with an expert coach in Dusan Ivkovic,
a strong structure and economic stability envied by all
its rivals. It was a big project designed to win the Euro-
League, a title that the Red Army team had not lifted
since 1971 when Aleksandar Gomelskiy, the president
of the club in 2003, was coach of the team.
Two frustrated attempts
During the 2003-04 season, CSKA lived up to its role
as favorite. The Russian team rolled to an 11-3 record in
the regular season and then a 5-1 record in the Top 16.
On a powerful team with J.R. Holden, Victor Khryapa,
Victor Alexander, Theo Papaloukas, Dragan Tarlac,
Mirsad Turkcan and Sergey Monia, Brown was the top
scorer with 18.7 points per game. However, in that
year’s Final Four in Tel Aviv, CSKA had to play against
the host, Maccabi, which also had a super team, with
Sarunas Jasikevicius, Anthony Parker, Maceo Baston,
Derrick Sharp, Nikola Vujcic, Yotam Halperin, David
Bluthenthal and Gur Shelef, plus the great Pini Gershon
on the bench. Maccabi won 93-85 with 27 points
from Parker, while Brown had 23 of his own. It was an
unforgettable duel between two of the best shooters
ever in the EuroLeague. In the third-place game, Brown
scored 27 against Montepaschi Siena with 12 of 12 free
throws, 4 rebounds and 5 assists for a performance
index rating of 36 in a 94-97 win for CSKA.
The second attempt for Brown and CSKA came the
following season, 2004-05, with the Final Four coming to
Moscow. CSKA mopped the floor in the regular season
with a perfect 14-0 record, including pairs of victories
against such teams as Benetton, Panathinaikos and
Tau Ceramica. In the Top 16, CSKA suffered a single loss
against FC Barcelona, but its impressive overall record
of 20-1 and the fact that it was hosting the Final Four
made CSKA the undisputed favorite to take it all. But,
once again, basketball had a surprise up its sleeve. In the
semifinals, CSKA faced Tau Ceramica, coached by Dusko
Ivanovic – Brown’s old mentor at Limoges. Luis Scola,
Pablo Prigioni, Travis Hansen, Arvydas Macijauskas (23
points), Jose Manuel Calderon, Sergi Vidal, Tiago Splitter,
Kornel David and Andy Betts surprised the hosts by
winning 75-85. Marcus Brown played one of the worst
games I can remember from him, with “only” 12 points.
It was a hard blow, but Brown still had hopes of
becoming a EuroLeague champion. In the summer of
2005, Brown moved to Spain and joined Unicaja. Sergio
Scariolo, then the coach in Malaga, talked to me about a
detail that was unknown, at least to me:
“Marcus was like a gift from the skies. He was a
64
65

complete player. But besides his unquestionable qualities
on the court, what fascinated me about him was
his mental strength. This is something difficult to learn.
You either have it inside your head and your soul, or you
don’t. If I had to list the players I coached with the strongest
minds, Brown would be among the top three or
four. The others: Sasha Djordjevic, Juan Carlos Navarro
and Pau Gasol. A strong mind is what makes a champion
complete. Brown was unbelievable in practice. He
was capable of punishing himself to repeat something
a thousand times until he managed to get it how he
wanted it. He helped me a lot with the youngsters by
setting this example. And on top of everything, he was
very humble.”
Indeed, his effort in third-place games was more
evidence of Brown’s incredible pride. After winning
the first consolation game in 2004, he and CSKA lost
the second in Moscow after double-overtime to Panathinaikos.
He scored 21 points, the most for CSKA, in
that game. In the 2007 third-place game with Unicaja,
Brown’s driving layup with 1.2 seconds left beat Tau
Ceramica 76-74 and assured that Unicaja went home
with at least one victory from its first, and still only,
Final Four.
Last stop, Zalgiris
From season to season, Brown increased the
amount of points he scored in the EuroLeague. Even
if he was lacking a team title, the individual accolades
kept piling up. He was weekly MVP several times and in
the 2003-04 season he was part of the All-Euroleague
First Team with Jasikevicius, Dejan Bodiroga, Turkcan
and Sabonis. He was on the second team in the 2002-
03 and 2004-05 seasons. At 33 years old, he was still a
coveted player.
Sabonis, his teammate in Portland, and later president
at Zalgiris, convinced Brown to move to Kaunas.
His scoring average decreased to 12.4 points, but it was
enough for Maccabi to call him. He played in Tel Aviv
during the 2008-09 season, and he put up 12.6 points
per game. For 2009-10, Brown was back to Zalgiris and
averaged 11.1 points at 36 years of age. He retired at
the end of that season, and on November 17, 2001, the
Euroleague paid him a well-deserved tribute in Kaunas.
Seven years after retiring, Brown is still the sixth-best
scorer ever in the EuroLeague with his 2,739 points in 179
games. Just nine players to date have scored more than
2,500 points, and each of the other eight played at least
29 games more than Brown. In terms of scoring average,
only two EuroLeague players this century have done better
than Brown’s 15.3 points per game in more than 100
appearances – Keith Langford (17.4) and Nando De Colo
(16.4). Despite many more games being played these
days, Brown is still ranked 10th in three-pointers made
all-time, having connected on 327 of 827 attempts, for
39.54%. Only Langdon has made more three-pointers at
a higher percentage (42.7%). Brown was a shooter but
his good technical foundations allowed him also to play
point guard and dish assists, 458 in all, ranking him 28th
all-time. He also ranks 23rd in steals, with 185, and was
both a solid defender and rebounder.
Brown was a driving force behind every team with
which he won 19 national, regional or international
league and cup titles in six different countries – France,
Turkey, Russia, Spain, Israel and Lithuania – a variety
that is unmatched. In a few words, he was a player who
wrote his own page in the European basketball story.
Marcus Brown
101 greats of european basketball
B