101 Greats of European Basketball

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