Marcus Brown

Marcus Brown
Player information
Full name	Marcus James Brown
birthday	April 3, 1974
place of birth	West Memphis (AR), USA
size	193 cm
position	Shooting Guard
college	Murray State
NBA draft	46th Pick ( 1996 )
Clubs as active
1992–1996 Murray State Racers ( NCAA ) 1996–1997 Portland Trail Blazers 1998 EB Pau-Orthez 1999 Detroit Pistons 1999–2000 CSP Limoges 2000–2001 Benetton Treviso 2001–2003 Efes Pilsen 2003–2005 CSKA Moscow 2005–2007 Unicaja Málaga 2007– 2008 Žalgiris Kaunas 2008–2009 Maccabi Tel Aviv 2009–2011 Žalgiris Kaunas 000 0 000 0

Marcus James Brown (born April 3, 1974 in West Memphis , Arkansas , USA ) is a retired American basketball player . He played mostly in Europe in the position of Shooting Guard and won the national championships of France, Turkey, Russia, Spain, Lithuania and Israel. Although he never won the title in the highest-ranking European club competition ULEB Euroleague , he is considered one of the most successful North American basketball players in European championship competitions in the first decade of the 21st century.

Career as a player

college

After finishing school in West Memphis, Brown went to Murray State University . Here he played a total of four seasons for the college team Murray State Racers. During this time he came to a points average of 18.9 per game.

NBA

Marcus Brown was drafted in 1996 as 46th by the Portland Trail Blazers and was used 21 times in the NBA in the 1996/97 season. For the next season he signed with the Vancouver Grizzlies but was not used and moved to France. The 1998/99 season Brown could not play because of a knee injury. He got an NBA contract with Detroit Pistons for the 1999/2000 season and was released after only six appearances during the season.

Europe

National championships

Brown's career in Europe was much more successful. After he helped the team of Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez to the championship with his 20.5 points per game in the season (1997/98), he came back to France in 1999 and played for the club Cercle Saint-Pierre from Limoges. With this club he won a triple of national championship and cup victory in 2000 as well as victory in the Korać Cup . He was voted Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the French league (for the second time after 1998) and MVP of the play-offs. After CSP Limoges had to relegate for financial reasons, Brown moved to Benetton Treviso in Italy. With Benetton he also took part in the new Euroleague competition set up by the ULEB in the 2000/01 season , which subsequently replaced the FIBA Europaliga and Suproleague . Here he came up with an average of 19.9 points per game.

For the 2001/02 season he moved to Efes Pilsen in Istanbul, Turkey. In the following two years he won the Turkish championship, including in the first year 2002 as a double in connection with victory in the Turkish cup competition. In both seasons he was elected MVP of the Turkish League . From the 2003/04 season, Brown played in Russia for CSKA. Here, too, he was twice Russian champion within two years, of which in the second year as a double winner in connection with the success in the Russian cup competition. He then moved to Spain for two seasons, where he was Spanish champions in the 2005/06 season with Unicaja from Málaga.

From the 2007/08 season he played for Žalgiris in Kaunas, Lithuania. In his first season he won the Lithuanian championship and the cup and the Baltic Basketball League . He became the MVP of the Lithuanian League Play-Off Final. For the 2008/09 season he was loaned to Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel, where he was Israeli champions with his team. After his return to Žalgiris he was once again Lithuanian champion as a player / coach in the 2010/11 season. Then he ended his career.

Euroleague

Marcus Brown was the first player who had collected 2500 points in the top European league from the 2000/01 season. In total, he came to 2715 points in the Euroleague and at the time of his retirement at the end of the 2010/11 season was the most successful point collector ever in this competition, before being surpassed by Juan Carlos Navarro in the following season . He played with his respective teams a total of three times in the Final Four of the Euroleague (2004, 2005 and 2007), with CSKA 2004 and CB Málaga 2007 being third as the best placement. With ZSKA he lost both games in the Final Four tournament in front of his own audience in 2005 and only finished fourth. In the selection of the best players of a season ( English All-Euroleague First Team ) he was appointed in 2004 and twice in the Reserve All-Euroleague Second Team (2003 and 2005).

Awards and Achievements

With the team

• French championship winner (2 ×): 1998, 2000
• French Cup Winner: 2000
• Turkish championship winner (2 ×): 2002, 2003
• Turkish Cup Winner: 2002
• Winner Russian Championship (2 ×): 2004, 2005
• Russian Cup Winner: 2005
• Spanish championship winner: 2006
• Lithuanian championship winner (2 ×): 2008, 2011
• Lithuanian Cup Winner (2 ×): 2008, 2011
• Israeli Championship Winner: 2009
• Korać Cup winner : 2000
• Winner Baltic Basketball League (3 ×): 2008, 2010, 2011

Personal awards

• MVP French Championship 1998, 2000.
• MVP Turkish Championship 2002, 2003.
• MVP of the month December Euroleague 2008/09.
• MVP of the Baltic Basketball League 2009/10
• MVP of the 3rd and 4th match day in the VTB 2009/10.
• Member of the All-Euroleague First Team 2003/04
• Member of the All-Euroleague Second Team 2002/03, 2004/05

Web links

• Brown, Marcus - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• Marcus Brown Past Stats, Playoff Stats, Statistics, History, and Awards - NBA and NCAA statistics on basketball-reference.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Evin Alexander Demirel: The reigning American in Europe. ESPN , July 23, 2011, accessed January 22, 2012 .