101 Greats of European Basketball

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
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