Marcus James Brown (born April 3, 1974) is a retired American professional basketball player. At 6'3" (1.91 m) tall, he played as a shooting guard. A three time All-EuroLeague selection, Brown has been mentioned as being one of the top U.S. players ever to play abroad. Brown ended his career as a player-coach with Žalgiris Kaunas in 2011. Brown was the EuroLeague's career scoring leader since the year 2000, when he ended his career in October 2011. As far as United States players only are concerned, Brown remains the league's all-time scoring leader since the year 2000, when the league's current organizer (Euroleague Basketball) took over the competition.
College career
Brown played college basketball at Murray State University, in the Ohio Valley Conference. In his senior season, he averaged 26.4 points per game, on 50 percent shooting from the field, and 42 percent shooting from 3-point range. It was announced in October 2009, that Brown was named to the Murray State University Athletic Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame on February 6, 2010. That same night, his No. 5 jersey was retired by Murray State, and is hanging in the rafters at the CFSB Center.
Professional career
Brown was selected with the 17th pick of the 2nd round, in the 1996 NBA draft, by the NBA club the Portland Trail Blazers. He played the 1996–97 NBA season with the Trail Blazers, where he averaged 4 points per game, in 9 minutes per game, while shooting 41 percent from 3 point range, in his rookie season. He then signed with the Vancouver Grizzlies for the 1997–98 season, but he did not play in any regular season games for them.
After being released by the Grizzlies, during the 1997–98 NBA season, he signed with the French League club ÉB Pau-Orthez, for the remainder of the 1997–98 season. He averaged 20.5 points per game in the French League with Pau-Orthez, and led them to the 1998 French League championship. Unfortunately, Brown tore the ACL in his knee in the final game of the French playoffs.
Brown took off the entire 1998–99 season to rehab his knee injury. He then played in the NBA again, with the Detroit Pistons, at the start of the 1999–00 season. The Pistons released him in 1999, after he played with the club in 6 regular season games. He then returned to the French League, where he signed with CSP Limoges for the remainder of the 1999–00 season. With Limoges, he won the French League championship, the French Cup title, and the FIBA Korać Cup championship. He was named the French League Foreign Player's MVP.
After having a lot of success in the French League for 2 seasons, he then moved up to the higher level Italian League, where he signed with the Italian EuroLeague club Benetton Treviso for the 2000–01 season. With Benetton he played in the EuroLeague for the first time, and he averaged 19.9 points per game that season in the EuroLeague. After that season, he signed with one of the biggest clubs in the EuroLeague, the Turkish League club Efes Pilsen.
Over the next two seasons with Efes, Brown was very successful in Turkey, as he won the Turkish Cup, and 2 Turkish League national championships. He was also named to the 2002–03 season's All-EuroLeague Second Team, after he averaged 19.6 points per game. Brown then moved to the Russian Super League powerhouse CSKA Moscow, where he signed a contract that made him the highest paid American basketball player in Europe at that time.
Over the next two seasons with CSKA, he was quite successful in Russia, as he won the Russian Cup, 2 Russian National Championships, and the Russian Super League A Player of the Year award in 2004. He was also named to the 2003–04 season's All-EuroLeague First Team and to the 2004–05 season's All-EuroLeague Second Team, while he was a member of CSKA.
Brown then spent the next two seasons playing with Unicaja Málaga of the Spanish ACB League, where over those 2 years he would play alongside fellow ex-NBA players Daniel Santiago, Pepe Sánchez, Jorge Garbajosa, and Jiří Welsch. He helped to lead Unicaja Málaga to its first ever Spanish League national championship, during the 2005–06 season.
After spending two seasons with Málaga, Brown joined the Lithuanian League club Žalgiris Kaunas. With Zalgiris, in the 2007–08 season, Brown won the Lithuanian League national championship, the Lithuanian Cup title, and the Baltic League championship, all in the same season. He was also named the MVP of the Lithuanian League playoff finals that season.