Euroleague: Baskonia’s Markus Howard wins the 2023-24 Alphonso Ford Top Scorer Trophy

In just his second Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season, Markus Howard of Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz etched his name into the history books by winning the 2023-24 Alphonso Ford EuroLeague Top Scorer Trophy thanks to his league-best average of 19.5 points per game. Howard set the EuroLeague’s single-season scoring record with 759 total points over 38 games between the regular season, Play-In Showdown and EuroLeague Playoffs.

The Ford Trophy is the only post-season award based solely on statistics. Howard overtook Mike James of AS Monaco in the second half of the season for the top spot. James finished second in the scoring race with 17.9 points per game followed by Wade Baldwin of Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv in third with 17.4.

When Howard was on, there was no hotter player in the league. He became the first scorer in EuroLeague history to rack up at least 30 points in a game five times in one season. He made at least 5 three-pointers 16 times while shattering the competition record with 148 three-pointers made for the season. That bested the previous record by 41 triples! His total points scored were 19 more than the previous record. Both of those marks had been held by Alexey Shved, who set them in 2017-18 with Khimki Moscow Region.

At age 25, Howard is the second-youngest player to ever win the award. Drew Nicholas was 24 years old when he won the 2006 Ford Trophy with Benetton Treviso.

Among Howard’s best games were a 35-point assault on LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne in Round 9 and the same total at Real Madrid in Round 33. Howard was particularly lethal in the final stretch of the regular season; he averaged 25 points per game between Round 29 and 34.

The award is named after Alphonso Ford, who died of leukemia in September 2004 after a brilliant career in which he was the competition’s leading scorer twice, in 2000-01 and 2001-02, both seasons with Olympiacos Piraeus. He subsequently led Montepaschi Siena in scoring as it reached the 2003 Final Four. Ford owns the EuroLeague’s all-time best scoring average with 22.2 points in 54 career games.

Howard is the 15th winner of the Ford Trophy since it was first awarded in 2005 and the second to win it with Baskonia following Igor Rakocevic, who had the honor in both 2007 and 2009. Rakocevic is one of three players with multiple Ford Trophies. He won a third with Anadolu Efes Istanbul in 2011. Keith Langford who with Olimpia Milan in 2014 and UNICS Kazan in 2017 and Shved won with Khimki in 2018 and 2021.

The other Ford Trophy winners are Sasha Vezenkov with Olympiacos Piraeus last season; Vasilije Micic with Efes (2022); Mike James with Milan (2019); Nando De Colo with CSKA Moscow (2016); Taylor Rochestie with Nizhny Novgorod (2015); Bobby Brown (2013) and Bo McCalebb (2012), both with Montepaschi Siena; Kleiza (2010); Marc Salyers with Chorale Roanne (2008); Drew Nicholas with Benetton Treviso (2006); and Charles Smith with Scavolini Pesaro in the award’s original season, 2005.