Brett Brown

At 63 years old, Brett Brown has this physical status:

Brett William Brown (born February 16, 1961) is an American professional basketball coach.

He is the current head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Australia national team.

Brown is a former college basketball player who previously served as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs.

He also has extensive experience coaching in Australia, having been the head coach of the North Melbourne Giants and Sydney Kings of the NBL and the Australia men's national team.

Personal life

Brown met and married his wife, Anna, in Australia. They have two daughters and a son, Sam. The family resides in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania.

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Playing career

Brown, who was born and raised in Maine, played organized basketball in Rockland first, then became a star guard in junior high school, then his father was recruited as the head coach. Brown came from South Portland, where he was a standout basketball player at South Portland High School, where he graduated in 1979. In 1978 and 1979, Brown was a two-year all-state guard who aided his squad to a 27–0 record and a State Class A championship, as well as a coveted state Class A title. Both Brown and his father, Bob Brown, who served as South Portland's head coach during Brown's playing career, have been inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.

Brown spent four seasons at Boston University under Rick Pitino. In his sophomore year and senior years, he was named the Lou Cohen MVP and spent as the team captain. The Boston Terriers made their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 1959 during his senior year. Brown had the fourth-most assists in school history by the time he graduated. He spent time as a graduate assistant under coach John Kuester after graduating. Brown began working as a consultant for AT&T, amassing enough funds to fly to Oceania in 1987.

Coaching career

Brown made a cold call to Melbourne Tigers head coach Lindsay Gaze in 1988, leading to a job and Brown's return to Australia for the next 18 years. He was a Tigers assistant coach until 1993, when he became head coach of the North Melbourne Giants. In 1994, Brown was named NBL coach of the Year, leading the Giants to a championship victory over the Adelaide 36ers. Before taking over the San Antonio Spurs, he served as head coach of the Giants until 1998. Brown coached the Sydney Kings from 2000 to 2002 during his time with the Spurs. He was a head coach for 278 NBL games, winning 56% of the time.

R. C. Buford, the Spurs' basketball operations manager, hired Brown as an unpaid employee of the Spurs' basketball operations department for the 1998-99 lockout season after attending a basketball camp operated by Brown and Andrew Gaze. After a stint with the Sydney Kings, he took up a role with the Spurs in 2002, this time as the team's director of player growth. Buford praised him for focusing on the Spurs' less well-known players and assembling a solid bench; this approach will continue to help the Spurs even after Brown departed from his role as player development director. In September 2007, he was promoted to assistant coach under Gregg Popovich, who was working under coach Gregg Popovich. Brown Brown Brown Brown is regarded as one of his "best friends," and Brown would later incorporate several of Popovich's ideas into his own offensive system. He was instrumental in the signing of Australian guard Patty Mills, who served under him for the Australian national team. Brown was a member of the Spurs for four seasons during their championship-winning seasons.

Brown was offered the opportunity to replace Mike Budenholzer as the top assistant on Gregg Popovich's staff during the 2013 NBA offseason, but the Philadelphia 76ers' head coach was chosen instead in August 2013. Heinherited a team led by new general manager Sam Hinkie, and the Sixers were only able to lure Brown away from the Spurs after promising a four-year contract. Following Mike Dunlap, his appointment made him the 24th head coach in the franchise's history and the second person to be a head coach in both the NBL and NBA. During Brown's first year in the league, the Sixers were the youngest team in the league and one of the youngest of all time. The Sixers will miss 26 games in a row during the second half of the 2013–14 season, tied for the longest NBA losing streak. Michael Carter-Williams earned the NBA Rookie of the Year Award in 2014 and praised Brown for assisting him in winning the award and growing as a player.

The 76ers signed Brown to a contract extension on December 11, 2015. The 76ers signed Brown to a new deal extension on May 31, 2018, marking their first playoff appearance since 2012. Brown was named interim general manager after Bryan Colangelo resigned following a social media controversy, where he chastised team members.

After being swept out of the first round of the 2020 NBA playoffs by the Boston Celtics, Brown was fired by the 76ers on August 24, 2020.

Brown re-joined the San Antonio Spurs as an assistant coach on June 30, 2022.

National team career

Brown was an assistant coach for Australia's national team from 1995 to 2003, and he appeared in the 1998 FIBA World Championship and the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics. He was hired in 2009 to serve as the team's head coach and stayed in that role until 2012. In the 2010 FIBA World Championship, Australia finished 10th under Brown. He led Australia to the quarter-finals of the 2012 Summer Olympics, where they were defeated by the United States national team, who won the tournament.

Since replacing Andrej Lemanis, Brown returned to Australia's national team as head coach on November 27, 2019. He had been expected to lead the team at the 2020 Summer Olympics but the COVID-19 pandemic pandemic pandemic didn't hold off until 2021. Brown resigned from his position on October 13, 2020, after the team had not led the team in a game. He cited his work in the 76ers and the challenges of travelling with his family due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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