Larry Brown

As a player, Brown was an All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection for the University of North Carolina in 1963 and an Olympic gold medalist in 1964, also earning an AAU National Championship with the Akron Wingfoots the same year. He then excelled in the American Basketball Association (ABA) from 1967 to 1972, leading the league in assists per game for its first three seasons and being named MVP of the 1968 ABA All-Star Game. Brown concluded his playing career as the ABA’s all-time assist leader with 2,509 assists, securing an ABA championship with the Oakland Oaks in the 1968–69 season. Transitioning to coaching in 1972, Brown began his head coaching career with the Carolina Cougars in the ABA, where he was named ABA Coach of the Year three times (1973, 1975, 1976).

In 2002, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Brown achieved his NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, and followed this with another Eastern Conference Championship in 2005. He also served as head coach for the United States men’s basketball team, earning an Olympic Bronze Medal in 2004. After tenures with the New York Knicks (2005–2006) and Charlotte Bobcats (2008–2010), Brown returned to college coaching at SMU from 2012–2016, where he guided the team to an American Athletic Conference Championship in 2015.

He briefly coached internationally with Auxilium Torino in Italy in 2018. Most recently, Brown served as an assistant and advisor for the Memphis Tigers from 2021–2022. His enduring impact on basketball was further recognized in 2021 when he was named one of the 15 Greatest Coaches in NBA History and received the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award.