Hubie Brown names Kobe Bryant's ex-teammate alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in his timeless HoF-worthy list

Former Memphis Grizzlies head coach Hubie Brown sat down for a Q&A session with NBA.com's Ben Lambert on Sunday. The legendary broadcaster will call his final NBA game tonight.

Brown answered questions about his 60-year-long career and the players he coached. When asked if there were players he coached who would have thrived in today's game, the 91-year-old said:

"The game has changed so much, from when I was playing in high school in the 1950s to today," he said. ... "I’m going to name you nine guys — they’re all in the Hall of Fame — that I was fortunate enough to coach. In Milwaukee, when I entered the league as an assistant, there was Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bobby Dandridge."

He mentioned ABA stars Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel, along with Patrick Ewing and Bernard King from his time with the Knicks. Brown also included a former teammate of Kobe Bryant from his time coaching in Memphis.

"When I came back to coach Memphis, we had this young man from Spain who was a teenager: Pau Gasol," Brown said. "Those guys could play at any level, at any time, period, because they were complete, and they were able to dominate in their time periods."

Hubie Brown: From Coach of the Year to broadcasting mogul

Hubie Brown will take charge of one final broadcast on Sunday as he calls the game between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Philadelphia 76ers. Brown has been associated with the game since high school and played for Niagra University in college before going undrafted in the 1955 NBA draft.

After a short stint with the Rochester Colonels (1958-59), Brown turned his attention towards coaching, where he coached teams like St. Mary Academy and Cranford High School before landing an assistant role at Duke University. After spending four years with the Blue Devils, Hubie joined the Milwaukee Bucks coaching staff in 1972, spending two years in Wisconsin.

Following his time with the Bucks, he earned his first head coach role with the Kentucky Colonels in the ABA. Then, he was appointed as the Atlanta Hawks head coach and won the 1978 Coach of the Year award. He joined the New York Knicks in 1982.

Brown joined the CBS crew after his time with the Knicks and stayed out of the coaching sphere for almost two decades. In 2002, he returned to coach the Memphis Grizzlies after 16 years as Jerry West hired him to replace Sidney Lowe.

Winning his second Coach of the Year award during this stint, Brown eventually returned to broadcasting and has been an omnipresent figure ever since.