By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Paris Basketball star TJ Shorts has been voted as the MVP for the 2023-24 BKT EuroCup season after an incredible debut season in the competition. Euroleague Basketball congratulates Shorts on the award, which was chosen by a combination of EuroCup head coaches, team captains, fans and media.
Shorts has been the engine that has made this near-perfect Paris team run, with the club – in its second year in the EuroCup – going 20-1 to date. With two more wins in Paris’s all-French EuroCup Finals series with Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse, Shorts and co. will have achieved the most-ever wins in a EuroCup season.
With a place in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague up for grabs, which would mark the first time Paris or Bourg has played in Europe’s premier club basketball competition, the American will be looking to continue a magical season on both an individual and collective level by inspiring Paris to a finals victory.
From day one, Shorts was intent on displaying his talent at the EuroCup level in his rookie season in the competition, leading Paris to a perfect 7-0 record while posting of 16.4 points, 2.4 rebounds, 7.9 assists, 2.3 steals and a PIR of 20.0 per night. Paris and Shorts tasted defeat for the first – and only – time in Round 8, but the 26-year-old’s dominance showed no sign of slowing down, as he finished the regular season with averages of 17.3 points, 3.1 rebounds, 7.6 assists, 1.8 steals and a 22.6 PIR.
Shorts’s supremacy only increased upon the arrival of the playoffs, with Paris entering the postseason in last eight thanks to its first-placed finish in Group A. For Shorts, there was no hanging around as he became the quarterfinals MVP and semifinals MVP in back-to-back rounds of the playoffs. Against Joventut Badalona in the quarterfinals, he amassed 21 points, 3 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal, 0 turnovers and a 28 PIR. In the semifinals, he averaged 22.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 4.0 steals and a 28.5 PIR in Paris’s 2-0 series sweep of the London Lions. All told, ahead of the finals, he is averaging 18.0 points, 3.3 rebounds, 7.5 assists, 2.0 steals and a 23.4 PIR in 21 games.