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Brown Continues To Make His Case As The Best Point Guard In The Euroleague

Two days removed from one of the most impressive scoring games in Euroleague history, Bobby Brown is likely somewhere trying to convince people he's not "that Bobby Brown". But after dropping 41 points and dishing out 7 assists and shooting his way into the record books, this point guard for Montepaschi Siena doesn't have to remind anyone what his name is.

By Wendell Maxey

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Do you know how often Bobby Brown the basketball player gets confused with Bobby Brown the R & B singer?

Enough to likely eclipse the total albums sold between New Edition, Bell Biv DeVoe, Johnny Gill and Ralph Tresvant combined. Enough to where Bobby Brown the basketball player has to use his personal Twitter account to remind folks, "once again I'm not Bobby Brown the singer", on the regular.

All joking aside -- and Brown is a good sport about the misplaced identity with the old school crooner -- this may officially be the time in his career where the 6'2 point guard who reps LAUNFD to the fullest actually makes a brand new name for himself as one of the most revered players in the overseas game. The journey from where Brown was to where he is now certainly has come with its share of naysayers, but hopefully any critics where silenced on Friday night when Brown, of Montepaschi Siena, put on a performance for the Turkish Airlines Euroleague record books.

The stat line from the boxscore was straight ridiculous: 41 points, 7 assists, 8-12 FG, 4-6 3-pt., 13-13 FT, 50 rating index, in 39 minutes.

Sick.

His jumper was smooth, the three-point shot might as well have been a layup, Chris Paul would be jealous of the dimes he dropped, and quarter in and quarter out Brown delivered in memorable fashion. By the end of the game, Siena won on the road versus Fenerbahce Ulker with a comeback 98-92 win in Top-16 play. Perhaps the best part of the story is the back story: Brown's impressive game came against the man he replaced in Siena.

After spending last season in Germany's Beko BBL with Oldenburg, Brown -- who has played for Alba Berlin, the Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Hornets, Los Angeles Clippers, Asseco Prokom in Poland, and Aris B.C. in Greece -- signed a one-year contract last summer in Italy with Montepaschi Siena, where Brown replaced -- or tried to replace -- Bo McCalebb.

Not only was McCalebb the 2011-12 Alphonso Ford top scoring trophy winner but perhaps the best point guard in the world not playing in the NBA.

McCalebb (who finished with 17 points on Friday) bounced to Fenerbahce and all Brown did was lead the Euroleague in scoring during the regular season (19.5 points per game). Oh, and he also did this:

Rank #1 in 3-pointers attempted (71)

Rank #1 in Field goals attempted (138)

Rank #1 in 3-pointers made (27)

Rank #1 in Free throws attempted (65)

Rank #1 in Free throws made (56)

Rank #1 in Games Started (10)

Rank #1 in Points (195)

Rank #3 in Assists (57)

Rank #3 in Assist-turnover ratio (300%)

Rank #3 in Index Rating (176)

Rank #5 in Field goals made (56)

Rank #5 in Fouls Drawn (50)

Rank #5 in Games Played (10)

Rank #7 in Minutes Played (311:48)

Rank #9 in Blocks against (7)

Aside from that, Brown hasn't done a whole lot this season.

Last year while in Oldenburg, Brown and I stayed in touch throughout the season thanks to Twitter. I'd prop him up about holding down Los Angeles all the way over here in Germany and even razed him about how the famed Drew League actually re-scheduled a summer game so he could catch his flight to play in Germany in mid-August, 2011 -- a flight he nearly missed if I'm not mistaken. Now that is some serious baller status. We briefly talked about an idea to connect at the 2011-2012 Beko BBL All-Star game to work on a story together and possibly shoot a short day-in-the-life of video on Brown, essentially a continuation of his previous summer playing in the Drew League.

Unfortunately, schedules conflicted and both the story and short film fell to the wayside.

Fast forward to today and there probably isn't a better time to write about all Brown has accomplished since leaving Deutschland and etching his name in the Euroleague history books as only the fourth player to ever have reached 41 points in a Euroleague game since 2000 (Alphonso Ford, Carlton Myers, and Kaspars Kambala).

Couple that with breaking the single-game Top-16 scoring record (Sarunas Jasikevicius, 37 points) and matching the highest recorded scoring index (50) (Tomas Van Den Spiegel, 2007) and Brown is easily the must-watch player as the Top 16 will start to narrow down to the Top 8 over the course of the next four months.

Simply put, there is only one Bobby Brown.