Former Hawks head coach Hubie Brown was named a co-recipient of the 2017 Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Basketball Coaches Association. Brown was honored along with long-time Warriors coach Al Attles, the NBCA announced Sunday.
“I am tremendously honored to be the co-recipient of the 2017 Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award because of the significance and status of the award,” Brown said in a statement. “This is also a tremendous honor because of my relationship with Chuck Daly in the coaching fraternity as assistant coaches at Duke University and then into the ranks of professional basketball. This award is a major highlight in my coaching career.”
The award honors the memory of Daly, a Hall of Famer who “over an outstanding NBA coaching career set a standard for integrity, competitive excellence and tireless promotion of NBA basketball.”
The Hall of Famer Brown coached the Hawks from 1976-81. He was named the NBA Coach of the Year in 1978 with the Hawks. He would win the award again 26 years later with the Grizzlies in 2004.
Brown is currently a basketball television analyst. He began his coaching career in 1955 at St. Mary’s High School in Little Falls, New York. He spent nine years at the high school level before becoming an assistant coach at the College of William and Mary in 1968. One year later, he joined Duke University as an assistant coach where he and Daly served together. In 1972, Brown joined the NBA as an assistant coach for the Bucks. After two seasons, he got his first professional head coach job with the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association. Brown led the Colonels to the franchise’s first and only ABA Championship in 1975. When the ABA folded after the 1976 season, Brown returned to the NBA as head coach of the Hawks.
Brown was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000 with the Curt Gowdy Award, given annually to a broadcaster for outstanding contributions to basketball. He was inducted in the Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2005. Brown was also inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2006.
Brown has a combined ABA/NBA record of 528-589.
“Coach Attles and Coach Brown have made gigantic and wide-ranging contributions to the NBA game and coaching profession over the last several decades,” NBCA president and Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle said in a statement.
Members of the NBCA selection committee include Bernie Bickerstaff, Billy Cunningham, Joe Dumars, Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich, Pat Riley, Donnie Walsh and Lenny Wilkens.
Prior recipients are K.C. Jones and Jerry Sloan (2016), Dick Motta (2015), Bickerstaff (2014), Bill Fitch (2013), Riley (2012), former Hawks coach Lenny Wilkens (2011), Tex Winter and Jack Ramsay (2010) and Tommy Heinsohn (2009).
