By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
This season saw two EuroLeague stars, Mike James and Nando De Colo, leave the legendary Vassilis Spanoulis behind them on the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague all-time scoring list. James, who is now up to 4,558 career points, is expected to become the first player to break the 5,000-point milestone in the EuroLeague.
However, there is another scoring record in danger this season by a player who may be the next in line to climb the scoring ladder faster than anyone else, if he stays healthy and continues to play in the EuroLeague.
In just his second EuroLeague season, Baskonia‘s Markus Howard has already registered the second-best scoring season of all time, and depending on the fate of his team, he can end up getting even more, having already surpassed the milestone of 1,000 points in his EuroLeague career (1,145).
Heading into Friday’s Play-In Showdown finale, at home against Virtus Segafredo Bologna, Howard has scored 675 points, which trails only Alexey Shved’s output from the 2017-18 season. That season, Shved averaged 21.8 points in 34 games with Khimki Moscow Region for a total of 740 points.
Howard has averaged 19.3 points so far in 35 games, including the first-ever play-in game, which is an improvement on last season’s 16.9 average. This year, he is more efficient, too, shooting 49.5% on two-pointers, 40.1% on threes, and 83,6% on free throws. Yes, Howard is knocking on the door of the 50-40-90 club while standing tall as the regular season’s top scorer.
Here is the full list of the top scorers in each EuroLeague season with the key note that the top scorer award of the season, named after the late, great Alphonso Ford is awarded based on their points per game average.
| Year | Player | PTS |
| 2024 | Markus Howard | 675 |
| 2023 | Aleksandar Vezenkov | 582 |
| 2022 | Mike James | 534 |
| 2021 | Vasilije Micic | 532 |
| 2020 | Mike James | 590 |
| 2019 | Mike James | 595 |
| 2018 | Alexey Shved | 740 |
| 2017 | Keith Langford | 609 |
| 2016 | Nando De Colo | 525 |
| 2015 | Andrew Goudelock | 493 |
| 2014 | Keith Langford | 439 |
| 2013 | Vassilis Spanoulis | 457 |
| 2012 | Vassilis Spanoulis | 350 |
| 2011 | Mirza Teletovic | 309 |
| 2010 | Linas Kleiza | 377 |
| 2009 | Igor Rakocevic | 377 |
| 2008 | Nikola Pekovic | 378 |
| 2007 | Juan Carlos Navarro | 369 |
| 2006 | Will Solomon | 375 |
| 2005 | Anthony Parker | 431 |
| 2004 | Marcus Brown | 393 |
| 2003 | Alphonso Ford | 393 |
| 2002 | Alphonso Ford | 495 |
| 2001 | Gregor Fucka | 335 |
A remarkable average
Howard has also climbed the ladder in the per-average All-Time category pretty fast. Alphonso Ford remains on the top with 22.2 points per game in 54 contests, followed by Markus Howard (16.9 ppg in 67 games).
Kaspars Kambala (16.7 ppg in 53 games), Mike James (16.5 ppg in 277 games), and Anthony Parker (16.3 ppg in 90 games) complete the Top 5, followed by current EuroLeague president Dejan Bodiroga (16.1 ppg in 100 games) and Alexey Shved (16.1 ppg in 187 games).
It’s obvious that it’s hard for anyone to get near Ford’s consistency, considering the huge change in the number of games in the last 20 years.
However, Howard has made a stellar start in his first two seasons and he can also create a distance from the rest of the bunch if he continues like this.