Markus Anthony Howard (born March 3, 1999) is an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player for

Saski Baskonia Club Deportivo Saski-Baskonia, Sociedad Anónima Deportiva, S.A.D commonly known as Saski Baskonia () and also simply as Baskonia, is a professional basketball team based in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. The team plays in the Liga ACB and the EuroLea ...

of the Spanish

Liga ACB The Liga ACB, known as Liga Endesa for sponsorship reasons, is the top professional basketball division of the Spanish basketball league system. Administered by the Asociación de Clubs de Baloncesto (ACB), Liga ACB is contested by 18 teams, w ...

and the

EuroLeague The EuroLeague is a European men's professional basketball club competition. The league is widely recognised as the top-tier and the most prestigious men's basketball league in Europe. The league consists of 20 teams, of which 16 are given lon ...

. He played

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

for the

Marquette Golden Eagles The Marquette Golden Eagles are an athletic team representing Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. They compete as a member of the NCAA Division I level (non-football, sub-level), primarily competing in the Big East Conf ...

, where he was a two-time

All-American The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...

and led the nation in scoring in the 2019–20 season.

High school career

Howard began his high school career at Perry High School in

Gilbert, Arizona Gilbert is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. Located southeast of Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, Gilbert is home to 288,128 residents. It is the fifth-most populous municipality in Arizona and is considered a suburb of Phoenix. I ...

. As a freshman, he started in the backcourt with his brother and averaged 23 points per game, leading his team to the state semifinals. He committed to

Arizona State Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is one of the largest ...

following his freshman season. After a sophomore season where he averaged 32.4 points per game, Howard decommitted from Arizona State and reopened up his recruitment. For his junior season, Howard transferred to national basketball power

Findlay Prep Findlay Prep is a former high school basketball program located in Henderson, Nevada. History The program was created in 2006 by local businessman Cliff Findlay, who owns several car dealerships in the Las Vegas area. Despite closing its hig ...

Henderson, Nevada Henderson is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, about southeast of downtown Las Vegas. It is the List of cities in Nevada, 2nd most populous city in Nevada, after Las Vegas, with 317,610 residents. The city is part of the Las Vegas V ...

. During his junior season at Findlay Prep, where he led the team in scoring, Howard announced that he would reclassify to the class of 2016 and signed with Marquette.

College career

As a freshman at Marquette University, Howard entered the starting lineup and averaged 13.2 points per game and led the country in three-point shooting at 54.7%. He was named to the 2017

Big East Conference The Big East Conference (stylized as BIG EAST) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference that competes in National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA NCAA Division I, Division I in 10 men's sports and 12 women's sports. H ...

All-Freshman team. As a sophomore, Howard became one of college basketball's top scorers. On the season, Howard averaged 20.4 points per game and was named second-team All-Big East. He also finished the season with the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

's second-best

free throw percentage In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points by shooting from behind the free-throw line (informally known as the foul line or the charity stripe), a line situated at the end of the restricted area. Free throws ...

(93.8%). Going into his junior season of 2018–19, Howard earned national preseason recognition, appearing on the watch lists for the Wooden Award, the

Naismith Award Naismith Award is a basketball award named after James Naismith, and awarded by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. Naismith Awards include: * Naismith College Player of the Year (men's and women's; NCAA Division I basketball) * Naismith College Coach of th ...

and the

Bob Cousy Award The Bob Cousy Award, sponsored by the College of the Holy Cross, is an annual basketball award given by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to the top men's collegiate point guard. It is named after six-time National Basketball Assoc ...

for top

point guard The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the Basketball positions, five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position and is usually the shortest player ...

. Howard was also selected preseason first-team All-Big East. In Marquette's non-conference schedule, Howard recorded two 45-point games, against ranked teams

Kansas State Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public inst ...

and

Buffalo Buffalo most commonly refers to: * True buffalo or Bubalina, a subtribe of wild cattle, including most "Old World" buffalo, such as water buffalo * Bison, a genus of wild cattle, including the American buffalo * Buffalo, New York, a city in the n ...

. In the Buffalo win, Howard scored 40 of his total in the second half. He scored a career-high 53 points in an overtime win over Creighton on January 9, 2019, breaking a Big East single-game record. Howard became Marquette's all-time leading scorer when he contributed 38 points in an 88–53 victory against Loyola (Md.) in the team's season opener of his senior year. He was named Big East player of the week on November 11, 2019. On November 29, Howard scored 51 points in a 101–79 win over

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

. He became the third player to score 50 points in a game in three straight seasons, joining

Wayman Tisdale Wayman Lawrence Tisdale (June 9, 1964 – May 15, 2009) was an American professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and a smooth jazz bass guitarist. A three-time All American at the University of Oklahoma,

and

Pete Maravich Peter Press Maravich ( ; June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988), known by his nickname Pistol Pete, was an American professional basketball player. He starred in college at Louisiana State University's Tigers basketball team; his father, Press Mar ...

. In addition, since he scored 40 points in the previous match, he joined Maravich,

Johnny Neumann Carl John Neumann (September 11, 1951 – April 23, 2019), nicknamed "Johnny Reb", was an American professional basketball player and coach. At 6'6" and 200 pounds, he played at the shooting guard and small forward positions. High school and c ...

, and

Bob Pettit Robert E. Lee Pettit Jr. ( ; born December 12, 1932) is an American former professional basketball player. He played 11 seasons in the National Basketball Association, NBA, all with the Atlanta Hawks, Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks (1954–1965). In ...

as the only players in major conferences to score 40 points on back-to-back days. Howard sat out a game against

Jacksonville Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

on December 4 with a concussion. On February 12, 2020, Howard scored 24 points and had five rebounds and two assists in a 72–71 loss to Villanova. He became the Big East's all-time leading scorer in league games, surpassing

Lawrence Moten Lawrence Edward Moten (born March 25, 1972) is an American former professional basketball player. Moten attended Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C., and the New Hampton School in New Hampton, New Hampshire before playing his co ...

's 1,405 points. At the conclusion of the regular season, Howard was unanimously selected to the First Team All-Big East. Howard averaged 27.8 points and 3.3 assists per game as a senior. During his time at Marquette University, Howard accumulated 2761 points.

Professional career

Denver Nuggets (2020–2022)

After going undrafted in the

2020 NBA draft The 2020 NBA draft was held on November 18, 2020. The draft was originally scheduled to be held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on June 25, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was instead conducted at ESPN's facilities in Bristol, Connecticut, wi ...

, Howard signed a two-way deal with the

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division (NBA), Northwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA), W ...

whose official announcement was released on November 30, 2020. On May 13, 2021, Howard scored a career-high 15 points in a 114–103 win over the

Minnesota Timberwolves The Minnesota Timberwolves (often referred to as the Wolves or T-wolves) are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Timberwolves compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Divisio ...

. He re-signed with the Nuggets on a new two-way contract on August 15, 2021. Howard appeared in 31 games and had two 20-point performances during the 2021–22 season.

Cazoo Baskonia (2022–present)

On July 17, 2022, the Spanish club Baskonia announced the signing of Howard into a two-year deal. In October 2022, Howard became the eighth player ever to score 30 points or more in back-to-back games in the

. He scored 33 points against KK Partizan on October 14, 2022, and 30 points against Crvena Zvezda on October 19, 2022. On October 4, 2023, Howard signed a new contract with Baskonia through 2026 and on May 14, 2024, he agreed upon a further extension through 2028.

National team career

Howard has represented the United States in

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French language, French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. FIBA defines the rules of basketball, specifies the Basketball equipment ...

play on two occasions. In 2015, he was a member of the gold medal-winning US team in the

2015 FIBA Americas Under-16 Championship The 2015 FIBA Americas Under-16 Championship was the men's international basketball competition that was held in Bahia Blanca, Argentina from 10–14 June 2015. First round ''All times are local ( UTC−3).'' Group A ---- ---- ---- G ...

. Howard then won a gold medal at the

2016 FIBA Under-17 World Championship The 2016 FIBA Under-17 World Championship (Spanish: 2016 FIBA Campeonato Mundial Sub-17) was the 4th edition of the FIBA Under-17 World Championship, the biennial international men's youth basketball championship contested by the U17 national tea ...

in Zaragoza, Spain. In the U17 tournament, Howard averaged 11.9 points and 2.6 assists per game.

Career statistics

NBA

Regular season

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Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

, 37 , , 1 , , 5.5 , , .377 , , .277 , , .778 , , .6 , , .5 , , .1 , , .0 , , 2.8 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 31 , , 0 , , 5.7 , , .386 , , .400 , , .870 , , .4 , , .2 , , .3 , , .0 , , 4.1 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 68 , , 1 , , 5.6 , , .382 , , .341 , , .844 , , .5 , , .4 , , .2 , , .0 , , 3.4

Playoffs

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2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, style="text-align:left;",

, 9 , , 0 , , 12.4 , , .405 , , .423 , , .500 , , .8 , , .4 , , , , .1 , , 4.7 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 9 , , 0 , , 12.4 , , .405 , , .423 , , .500 , , .8 , , .4 , , , , .1 , , 4.7

EuroLeague

, - , style="text-align:left;",

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

, style="text-align:left;" rowspan="2", Baskonia , 33 , , 16 , , 20.5 , , .400 , , .365 , , .886 , , 1.4 , , 1.2 , , .6 , , , , 14.2 , , 8.4 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2023–24 , 39 , , 18 , , 23.0 , , .431 , , .400 , , .837 , , 1.2 , , 1.6 , , .5 , , .0 , , style="background:#CFECEC;", 19.5* , , 11.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 72 , , 34 , , 21.9 , , .419 , , .386 , , .858 , , 1.3 , , 1.4 , , .5 , , .0 , , 17.1 , , 9.8

Domestic leagues

{, class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size:100%; text-align:right;" ! Year ! Team ! League ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! , - , style="text-align:left;", 2021–22 , , style="text-align:left;",

Grand Rapids Gold The Grand Rapids Gold are an American professional basketball team in the NBA G League based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and are affiliated with the Denver Nuggets. The Gold play their home games at Van Andel Arena. They began play as the Anaheim ...

, , style="text-align:center;",

G League The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is a professional basketball league in North America that serves as the Minor league#Basketball, developmental league of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The league comprises 31 teams; as of ...

, , 2 , , 25.4 , , .367 , , .368 , , 1.000 , , 4.5 , , 3.5 , , , , , , 16.5 , - , style="text-align:left;",

, , style="text-align:left;", Baskonia , , style="text-align:center;", ACB , , 32 , , 19.1 , , .463 , , .424 , , .777 , , 1.1 , , 1.3 , , .6 , , , , 16.5 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2023–24 , , style="text-align:left;", Baskonia , , style="text-align:center;", ACB , , 30 , , 22.3 , , .439 , , .410 , , .893 , , 1.3 , , 1.3 , , .6 , , , , style="background:#CFECEC;" , 19.4*

College

{, class="wikitable" , - , style="background:#CFECEC; width:1em", * , Led NCAA Division I , - , style="text-align:left;", 2016–17 , style="text-align:left;", Marquette , 31 , , 27 , , 22.0 , , .506 , , .547 , , .889 , , 2.2 , , 2.3 , , .8 , , .1 , , 13.2 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2017–18 , style="text-align:left;", Marquette , 34 , , 31 , , 31.5 , , .464 , , .404 , , .938 , , 3.2 , , 2.8 , , 1.0 , , .1 , , 20.4 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , style="text-align:left;", Marquette , 34 , , 34 , , 33.5 , , .420 , , .403 , , .890 , , 4.0 , , 3.9 , , 1.1 , , .0 , , 25.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , style="text-align:left;", Marquette , 29 , , 29 , , 33.2 , , .422 , , .412 , , .847 , , 3.5 , , 3.3 , , .9 , , .0 , , style="background:#CFECEC;" , 27.8* , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 128 , , 121 , , 30.1 , , .444 , , .427 , , .882 , , 3.2 , , 3.1 , , 1.0 , , .0 , , 21.6

Personal life

Howard's older brother Jordan Howard played college basketball for

Central Arkansas Central Arkansas, also known as the Little Rock metro, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metro area in the U.S. state ...

and was the 2018 Southland Conference Player of the Year. The brothers were teammates for one season at Perry High. He is of Puerto Rican descent. Howard is very public about his Christian faith. Howard explained the reason why he wears number 0 by saying, "First and foremost, I'm a Christian before anything else. I'm a son

f God F, or f, is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet and many modern alphabets influenced by it, including the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of all other modern western European languages. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounc ...

so I want to be sure that my number meant something and it represented something. It truly represents that without my relationship with Christ, I feel like I am not the person that I'm meant to be." In 2018, Howard started a

Fellowship of Christian Athletes The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is an international nonprofit Christian sports ministry based in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City. History FCA was founded in 1954 by Eastern Oklahoma State College, Eastern Oklahoma A&M basketball c ...

club at Marquette. Mother is Noemi Santana Howard Father is Clarence "Chuck" Howard

References

External links

Marquette Golden Eagles bioUSA Basketball bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, Markus 1999 births Living people All-American college men's basketball players American men's basketball players American expatriate basketball people in Spain American sportspeople of Puerto Rican descent Basketball players from Morris County, New Jersey Denver Nuggets players Findlay Prep alumni Grand Rapids Gold players Liga ACB players Marquette Golden Eagles men's basketball players Sportspeople from Morristown, New Jersey Saski Baskonia players Shooting guards Sportspeople from Chandler, Arizona Basketball players from Maricopa County, Arizona Undrafted NBA players 21st-century American sportsmen