Europe's most competitive national domestic league, the Greek Basket League. He spent the season with Papagou, and led the team to a ninth-place finish, while also being the Greek competition's leading scorer, with 23.9 points per contest. Nevertheless, glory at the European-wide level turned out to be a little bit more far away than the great scorer thought. Before the beginning of the 1997–98 season, he was diagnosed with leukemia, thus obliging Papagou to break his contract. The treatment cost Ford the whole season, but he was convinced that he had a lot more to contribute. He signed a one-year deal with Sporting, a traditional Greek club that was struggling to remain in Greece's top basketball scene. The gifted shooting guard helped the team finish in a decent eleventh-place finish, but most importantly, he defied his disease, in an utterly remarkable way. Ford agreed to a two-year deal with the Greek club Nikas Peristeri, before the Greek Basket League 1999–2000 season, experiencing the game, within a team with considerably higher ambitions than any of the ones he had played for in the past. Needless to say, the challenge was accepted by the player, who would become a reference in the club's history. Ford averaged 22.7 points per game in the Greek League, leading Peristeri to a fifth-place finish in the league. Also, he made his first appearance in a European-wide competition, by playing in the European-wide 3rd-tier level FIBA Korać Cup's 1999–2000 season, where he scored 20.7 points per game, and reached the competition's top 16 with his team, before they lost to Adecco Estudiantes. The biggest scorer in EuroLeague's modern era The real breakout season for Ford though, was going to be his second one with Peristeri, in 2000–01. The team contended for the Greek Basket League 2000–01 season title, and ended up in the league's third-place position, while he was named the league's MVP. In parallel, the club also took part in Euroleague Basketball's EuroLeague 2000–01 season, and Ford shined, while playing for the first time at the highest European-wide league level. He was the EuroLeague Top Scorer, averaging 26 points per game, and had a memorable 41-point outburst against Tau Ceramica in the competition's playoffs, scoring more than half of his team's 79 points that night. Tau qualified for the quarterfinals, sweeping the playoff series between the two teams, by two games to none, but Ford's performance