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Four Decades of Research

 

Written by Mario Hicks, this document chronicles the journey and contributions of Marvin Harvey, known in the basketball world as the "Shot Doctor." Harvey's quest to perfect basketball shooting began at Ottawa University, where he formulated the "Ready-Rhythm-Release" methodology as part of a class assignment. This method revolutionized basketball shooting techniques and became Harvey's signature contribution to the sport.

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Harvey's approach was deeply analytical. He meticulously studied various shooting styles and techniques of renowned NBA players like Pete Maravich, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and others. This comprehensive analysis enabled him to identify the perfect components of shooting: trajectory, hand positioning, arc levels, rhythm, balance, and footwork. Harvey's findings culminated in the development of his shooting methodology, which he termed "The Ready-Rhythm-Release" (3R’s).

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Marvin Harvey's impact extended beyond theory. He applied his methodology in practical training sessions with players at different levels. His innovative techniques gained recognition and were sought after by high school athletes, collegiate players, and even NBA stars. Harvey's role as a shooting coach significantly influenced player development and training in basketball, making him a revered figure in the sport.

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Throughout his career, Harvey remained dedicated to refining and evolving his methods. His work has left an indelible mark on basketball training, particularly in shooting mechanics. The document "Marvin Harvey: Shot Doctor" by Mario Hicks is not only a testament to Harvey's dedication and skill but also serves as an insightful guide into the intricacies of basketball shooting techniques.

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The world renowned shooting mechanics, “Ready-Rhythm-Release” that was created by Marvin Harvey started as a single class assignment. Harvey was attending Ottawa University, located in Ottawa Kansas, where his professor assigned the class a thesis that had to answer a unique question on the topic of “sport.” The Professor gave out specific requirements for the research. It had to be done on the basis of a Scientific Method, measured through the science of biomechanics, and the proposition basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth. This meant that the thesis had to be searchable, founded principles, teachable, and proof that the thesis works. 

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After much debate, Harvey landed on the topic of “Shooting Form”, something his German Junior College Coach, Fred Pohlman, tried to relay to him back in 1976. The hypothesis was, “Is there a correct way to shoot a basketball?” What better person to try to answer that question than a “late starter or late bloomer,” Harvey had walked-on to the Junior College team without ever playing basketball. The coaches laughed at the fact that the practice season was about to start and the team had already been picked. The tryout was merely for practice players or to find a gem that they’d missed but it was not an actual event for players trying to make the team. They looked at each other and thought it was a gutsy move but they offered him the opportunity to try out a week later. As expected the team was stacked but Harvey showed promise. Pohlman collected the thoughts of the other coaches and they decided to offer Harvey a “Team Manager” position that would practice with the team and travel but not play during that season. Wanting to learn as much as he could Harvey accepted the offer, and the rest became history, six years later he received an invitation from Marty Blake, an NBA Chief Scout to try out in Los Angeles for an NBA Invitational Camp. 

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What Harvey thought back then, were just lessons to make him a better player, he later found that Pohlman had actually created the answer to his hypothesis; the perfect shooting mechanics. The basketball shot, at that time, was in its evolutionary stage. It was evolving from the two-hand push shot from the shoulders-out, to the one-hand release from above the head. Harvey’s discovery would later take the shot from its evolution stages to the revolutionary phase. It would not only change his life, but also the game of basketball as a whole, and he would become an unseen particle of NBA/WNBA Championship banners hanging in arenas across the country, and across the world for that matter. However, in order to solve the problem of his thesis, Harvey had to find a way to prove that Pohlman’s methodology worked. 

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With a photographic memory and analytical mind he began a mental-search by traveling backwards in time, to the countless NAIA and NBA games he attended, at Kansas City’s Kemper Arena. This arena was home to the NBA Kansas City Kings, before they moved to Sacramento to become the Sacramento Kings. Analytically, he focused on the differences in what Pohlman taught him, versus what the coaches at the top levels of basketball were teaching their players. He’d already had the opportunity to see the greatest shooters of that time, in person, like Pete Maravich, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Rick Barry, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Jamaal Wilkes, Scott Wedman, and Bob Love. Not only did he take thorough mental-notes on all of these players, he also completed in-depth analysis. After extensive research he was able to compare the differing techniques or methods of shooting and from there he was able to see what the perfect components of shooting were: making the ball go straight, hand positioning, levels of arc, timing, rhythm, balance, and footwork. Then he formed his first idea of his shooting methodology: The Ready-Rhythm-Release (3R’s).

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Both seasons, while he was a player at Penn Valley, Coach Pohlman got him tickets to most of the Kings home games and Harvey never missed a game. It was then, he began to watch and learn about more NBA players. He’d get into the game as early as anyone was allowed in, sometimes they would allow him to enter the game two hours before when only the players and the custodians were in the arenas, he’d sit and watch the differences of how players shot in their own warm up and then in the game warmup. Players like Scott Wedmen and Tiny Archibald caught his attention right away because they would come to the local rec-centers and play against the locals living in Kansas City.

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That year, 1978, as a junior in college, he spent all of his free time in the college or city library analyzing everything he’d seen at the Kings games, and he was also able to find more books in the town's local libraries. One of the books he acquired was called “Teaching Basketball” by Red Holdzman, Coach of the NBA New York Knickerbockers. Actually, it offered a variety of teaching points on the entire game. He read any book or magazines that allowed him the opportunity to compare shooting mechanics and make assessments. He read everything he could get his hands on that showed visuals of a player shooting. Players like Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBushchere, Dick Barnett, and Jerry Lucas all of the New York Knicks. Jerry West, LA Lakers, Jamiel Wilks, Los Angeles Lakers. Kareem Abdul Jabar, Milwaukee Bucks, Pete Maravich and Adrian Dantley, Utah Jazz, and John Havlicek, Boston Celtics.

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The first thing he picked up back then was that all the players shot their free-throws pretty much the same, the only difference was whether the ball was released from the side of the head or in front of the forehead, and the free-throw was an extension to how they released the ball from the perimeter or on a the jump shot. More shots were made and the shooting percentages were higher from the line and from the perimeter, even though there was no three point line. Some of the things that made that possible from the perimeter was better balance, better shot selection, and the key to their consistency was better “shooting mechanics.”

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The more he compared the shooting forms he noticed the top-tier shooters all had the same exact shooting mechanics. There may have been personality differences but the mechanics were the same. The more he watched the more it intrigued him as to why these or any shooter would miss wide-open shots in any situation.

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His curiosity grew, just to conclude that the number one ingredient to making an open shot was first having the ability to make the ball go in a straight line with an arch into the basket. Next, the arc was not that of the rainbow and from that point he started taking out everything in the mechanics of the players’ he’d studied that would cause the ball to not go in a straight line. Then, how much of the shot was hand-eye coordination, finger-ball connections, body alignments, footwork, release, balance, elbows, finger-pads etc.

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Everything he was learning took him back to the mechanics his former college coach tried to teach him the past summer. He realized then, that what Polhman was teaching was emphatically the correct shooting mechanics, and that all of the players that used that particular shooting-form were the best shooters in the NBA; at that time.

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As part of the analysis process, the next year he took eight of the ten NBA players that he had mirrored and had seen play the most and started a deeper dive into the studying of their mechanics. Some of these players were at the end of their careers and some were in the middle of their careers. However, Walt Frazier demonstrated the smoothness of the entire body working together. His upper body always matched his lower body. He shot the ball from the toes, through the legs, and off the fingers. His entire body came together and then went apart, and then he released the ball off the right side of his head with the elbows open; which Harvey questioned at the time.

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The concept was called “BEEF” balance, elbow, eye, and follow-through. He cautiously  didn’t agree with it at the time, because he was already studying the guys that were shooting the other way; from the middle, but Walt Frazier had bought into the “B.E.E.F” theory. This was a concept that was being created simultaneously around the same time Harvey was releasing the 3-R’s concept. This was an easier way to explain shooting mechanics especially when it came to youth development. 

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The B.E.E.F concept led to players lining the toe up with the nail/dot in the middle of the free-throw line when shooting free throws at the time, and still unexplainable today. Every shot has an imaginary line that a shooter uses to keep the ball going in a straight line. In this case, the ball started above the toe, the elbow stayed on the front side of the body, the wrist was in the cocked position, and as the ball started up, the knees started to bend. The ball came up in a straight line and stopped close to the shooting-hand side ear, and then released in a straight line. The shot ended with the follow through, this primarily was for shooters who thought that by shooting it from the middle, the ball would cover one eye.

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John Havlicek, Boston Celtics was a great jump shooter, but stayed close to the ground to have the true ability to release the ball at the peak of the jump. There is a great misconception about releasing the ball at the top of the jump which can cause a serious off balance of power, depending on how high you jump. The best shooters, including MJ only got off the ground about a foot or so on a three pointer before the ball was released, but the closer they got towards the basket the higher they jumped. John Havlicek was great at releasing the ball at the peak of the jump and managed to stay grounded which equaled his balance throughout the shot.

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Harvey built a lot of his early teachings of shooting mechanics off of the bases of Bob Love, Elgin Baylor, and Dave Debusher, New York Knicks. He learned so much from seeing pictures of Debusher, especially the free throw. The interesting thing about him that is not understood in today’s shooters was that he was a great stationary shooter as well. His mechanics from the free throw line matched his shooting mechanics from the perimeter. He was the player that was closest to the same form that Polhman had taught him, he had that imaginary line from your nose to the rim, knees relaxed, and feet were shoulders width apart, and the soft-hands (fingers), fingers balanced on the ball and directing the ball.

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Jerry West, of the LA Lakers was another that shot this except way. He was more of a perimeter shooter, off the catch and off the dribble. Watching Jerry West was a shooting clinic about the jump shot off the dribble. He had the ability to drive an opponent one way and then stop-on-a-dime and pull up for the jump shot over the opponent while maintaining  perfect rhythm, and full control of his body and the shot. He also had incredible finger-pad control. His fingers stayed softly balanced in the center of the ball throughout the entire journey of the shot, and then he released the ball off the last three middle fingers, the last phase of balance, and drove the fingers through the ball. One of the biggest disadvantages in shooting today is the footwork and balance that the great shooters had. Players don’t know how to get into the shot off the dribble or footwork off the pass. This requires preparation and the ability to change speeds.

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Scott Wedmen and Nate “Tiny” Archaball both played for the Kansas City Kings and their mechanics were a combination of West and Frazier. It was like the shooting mechanics had been passed down from generation to generation, but it was the players who studied who really got it. Bob “Butterbean” Love was actually Harvey’s favorite shooter growing up as an adolescent. He was a master at getting his feet planted quickly under his shoulders, and his knees bent before the ball was released directly above the eyes, with long arms and fingers; silky-smooth. Bob Love had all the components and it sometimes made a person wonder what he would have been like behind the 3-point arc, especially with his off the dribble game.

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Jamiel Wilks of the LA Lakers had an interesting twist to his shot that caused his form to look rather strange, but for some reason he managed to make most of the shots he took. The word on him was that he shot that way because where he grew up the guys would always try to take the ball from him when it was in front of his body. So this was an interesting person to study because up until that point most shooting forms/mechanics were untainted; fundamentally. Harvey studied Wilk’s shot for more than a year and the biggest thing saw was that he was successful because after all the twisting and going around the body the ball would arrive at the top of his forehead, the knees were properly bent, feet under the shoulders, and from there he released the ball in a laser like straight line.

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His last piece of research was done on Pistol ``Pete” Maravich's professional career started to take off and he showcased all the tools of Elgin Baylor, West, Frazier, Archabal, and Scott Wedmen, amongst all the others that Harvey had deliberately studied and researched for the last three years. After watching Maravich he’d made his clear decision of what the correct shooting mechanics should look like. Maravich was the epitome of all the fundamentals combining in all areas of the game. The fingers were the key to his grateful dribbling and passing and shooting. His game was complete with balance, patiences, gracefulness and his shot was the result of purposeful time on strategic habits and time. All the other players that Harvey had studied were the pieces of the puzzle, but Pete Maravich was the sum of all the pieces. His work ethic and dedication to the mastery of habit concluded that Harvey had to create teaching style and a clear-cut system that would unconsciously program the mechanics to where, like Maravich, the players would struggle in the beginning and consequently, the struggles would program movements. The movement would replace old-habits and they would eventually forget the way they started shooting, feel hopeless, and be forced to become attached to the new system. Once they reach the point of no return (to their old way), then they start to improve. The beauty of it all was when a player actually used the mechanics in a game the recall, or muscle memory would be at their disposal as a result of muscle memory. 

 

PROGRAMMING THE SHOT

Before he developed his teaching style, Harvey finished by researching all other shooting styles of instruction, like the “B.E.E.F.”. He then did a final in depth study on the developmental steps involved in teaching a baby to walk; repetition of movements. Then he researched the universal laws of learning: watching, listening, and doing. Repetition becomes the power of creating habits. Habits lead to instinct, and instinct is what you do in competition. 

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“Knowing is not enough, you must do it. Doing is not enough, you must apply.” _Bruce Lee

Finally he went on to build a deep process to simplify learning. He took sections of the mechanics and organized each one to become a habit after a certain amount of repetition. He simply built everything from the inside and building outwards.

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To master the shooting success of his research one must first create the habits that master the movements. “The first muscle you have to train is the brain,” says Harvey. He started by working with college classmates that had similar projects, and taught them how to shoot. Then he had to teach the college professor how to actually shoot, but then how to make baskets using all the research he’s consumed thus far. 

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Once he finished putting all the parts together he had to create a process. He started by programming each classmate by way of a mirror, which he called mirror drills. This involves the student looking in the mirror without a ball, creating muscle memory, and programming the movements in the brain. He first thought about a study he’d crossed, studying how the baby learned to walk, about doing a movement twenty-one times to create a habit. After that is locked in, Harvey then uses repetition of the new movements, but moves to the court where the students would try pantomiming the movements without a basket twenty-one times. After Which he would give them a ball without a basket and have them do the same movements. He’d also have classmates shoot at lines on the floor or at the side of the backboard.

 

Then he would have them start shooting one step away from the basket, but even then he didn’t allow students to focus on making the shots. He first had them stand one step away and attempt to touch the ball on the rim “softly” by driving the finger-pads through the ball ten times in the first five spots. This would help program maximum touch and control of the ball. At that point, he would allow them attempts to make the basket. This method is referred to as ‘one-stepper.’ Once a student could do 20/25 shots correctly, Harvey would allow them to take one step back and repeat the process that took at least a month until they were out into the five-stepper area, also known as the three-point line. Teaching students in this way would increase muscle memory as they moved further from the basket. At the same time he was programming the specific levels of arch, and back spin on the ball as they were allowed to move to the next stepper. 

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Back in Kansas City, Missouri where he grew up there was a story mentioned about Harvey himself at his back yard court in the middle of the night, which created his first nickname, “Radar”. One neighbor described hearing the sound of the ball hitting the concrete, once the sound paused for two or three seconds you’d hear the sounds of the nets swishing. Several nights a week he and classmates would enter the coliseum in the middle of the night and shoot in the dark.  

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Every shot is based on the free-throw mechanics, as he found in his research. The steppers allowed mastery of the first three-steppers, which were about fifteen feet away from the basket. From there he added the Pete Maravich footwork for the “catch-and-shoot” portion. In an effort to program the “catch-and-shoot” method he used the same formula except the players would start at the three-stepper and move out as far as they could without losing balance and strength. At which point he added the “shot-off-the-dribble” … adding the footwork he studied and copied from NBA hot-shot Jerry West for the four and five-steppers to accomplish all phases of the shot.

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By this time in his early career he was starting to understand why his major was “Teaching and Coaching”.

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TEACHING TECHNIQUES

For the sake of the finished product of research Harvey had to give the overall process a name, and he referred to this as the “Pro-Shot”. This gave it a distinction from the amateur shot which had a set of completely different movement patterns. A requirement of the research was to clarify what age bracket the methodology was meant for and at what age a coach could start teaching it. He tested the “Pro Shot” method to children in town under the age of twelve and through trial and error, he learned that thirteen years of age was the youngest age for teaching a pro shot to those participating. He found that those below the age of thirteen struggled in this process due to their lack of strength and sometimes mental capacity. Thirteen and those entering high-school were the perfect age and size because of the time it allowed to work on mechanics. Academia scholars thought that the ideal age for teaching pro skill sets or mastery was fifteen years of age so he stopped teaching the shot until after he graduated from college.

 

As a part of his final presentation, he had to teach it, demonstrate it, and assist the instructors through the process of making a basket. As a result, he received an A on his thesis paper, impressing everyone, and with the success of the thesis he was able to write his first book on shooting. In order to prove to himself that his method worked, Harvey did what every big brother would do. He started traveling home on the weekends and testing the information on his two younger brothers, trying his methodology on them. At the beginning, Harvey’s brothers were the only pieces of proof that the method worked, but that was enough for his thesis. 

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It should be noted that Marvin Harvey didn’t start teaching the shot to anyone until he had studied it, experimented with it, and saw that it was profound. Back in college he said something that surprised a female college professor, but has stuck with him till this day, “I would never be so selfish as to teach someone my way,” for this reason he continued to study and experimented on his theory before teaching it.

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He started teaching Physical Education and Coaching in Olathe, Kansas in 1983, and this allowed him the opportunity to further experiment on his techniques and methodology. He started his own private training for adolescents and teens who wanted to learn shooting, however, he also found students who were tall and did not learn the shooting-dribbling-passing skills (3-Essentials), because they played the post position. So in 1984 he also developed a “Big-Little” Skills training where he would visit various player’s homes to train them in their driveways, and he would use the same methods found in his thesis, building the shot from scratch, but added ball handling skills. This was all while he kept studying players, analyzing and comparing his 3R’s theory with college players (Michael Jordan UNC, Christian Laettner Duke, Lynette Woodard KU, who played for USA Basketball and Jennifer Azzi Stanford).

In 1984, Kansas University coach Kevin Cook went out to recruit the best shooters in the Kansas and Missouri areas. Cook noticed almost every player he went to recruit seemed to have a similar formula etched in what seemed like every driveway, especially in the Kansas areas.

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When Cook asked the recruits what it was and why he saw it every home he went to their response was that a “Shooting Coach” came to their homes and trained them. It was the 3 R's formula that Marvin Harvey wrote about in the thesis, and he had started experimenting on the form with local high scholars to show that the methodology had proof.

 

THE SHOT DOCTOR

Marvin Harvey, at the time, had also met KU’s Hall of Famer Lynette Woodard and had started experimenting with her. After Kevin Cook got a chance to meet Marvin Harvey and watch him work on multiple levels he came up with the mockery “Shot Doctor”, a title that Marvin Harvey would later file for a patent on. Thus came the term, “Shot Doctor” … a Shooting Teacher that would make house calls to fix your shot or build them from scratch. Immediately Harvey became a household name in the four state area.

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In 1984 he became the official shooting coach for the KU Women’s Basketball team, and would eventually leave his mark on adolescents and teens across the four state area, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Oklahoma that came to KU women’s and men’s basketball camps. During 1987-1989 he toured the United States with the Lynette Woodard Camps as the Shot Doctor, with a number of NCAA Coaches, including KU Women’s Head Coach Marian Washington, sponsored by Dial Soap. The camps stretched from California to New York, and mostly all the states in between.

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By 1991, Marvin Harvey had trained enough players to know how profound his theory was. However, the question lingered in his mind, “what would happen if I taught the shot to a team?” He was already experimenting and training a group of 13U girls that he eventually ended up coaching as an AAU team that went from players who could not make the major AAU Club teams in Kansas or Missouri to playing for a National AAU Championship; they literally shot every team out. The team was so successful that they drew a full house crowd at every game just to see them warm up and shoot.

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Moving forward he and Kevin Cook decided to create a video showing how you could acquire the shot that had been broken down to the simplest form. Gaining popularity as the Shot Doctor he started training NBA and college players, and became the guest speaker  at KU and MU during the summers. Once the 90’s hit he was a house-hold name across the four states. 

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From 1991-1993 he was hired to tour the state of Florida training kids from Pensacola to Miami, still growing and experimenting with the theory. Every summer he was asked to move to Florida to stay and live. The new norm at the time were Private-Schools and they swarmed him at every stop, asking him to move to their city and coach at their school. Each year one particular Christian school hosted him and took the opportunity to learn from him, and consulted with him about building an athletic program at their school. Coming from Kansas, and teaching in the number one school district in the country for four straight years, it was hard to see a move to Orlando, Florida where the school was in the evolution phases. They had all the right pieces, all they needed was someone to organize those pieces. Harvey received repeated phone calls, video’s, until his curiosity was piqued by a video of the boys basketball team playing and getting beaten by thirty points. The team was the “home-coming” game for every school’s schedule. One particular night Harvey had nothing to do and decided to put the video in and watch it. A year later he was speaking in front of the school during an introduction, saying how it puzzled him how a team could put out enough energy to win five games and lose one game by thirty-points. 

 

Six years later that school was recognized by the Florida High School Association for sportsmanship and scholar program. The Boys basketball team had returned the favor and beaten the teams that used to beat them, and they were three time District Champions. The girls basketball team and volleyball teams had made it to the State Tournaments. They created a golf and tennis team that won the State Championships, and the Cheer Team, led by two college students, won four National Championships. 

 

Taking the opportunity, Harvey got involved with “Team Florida '' the state’s largest girls basketball organization, but not just any girl, these were the best of the best girls across the state. Out of three years of this travel ball training and coaching every player on his teams went to a major NCAA Division-1 College or University, and although winning was not as important to him as concluding parts of his experiment, he forced the organization to create training opportunities for these players in order for him to continue to coach. The inside goal however was to test his methodology on athletic players that didn’t depend on fundamentals to win.

 

When Kevin Cook went to the WNBA as the Assistant Coach for the 4-Time WNBA Champion Houston Comets, Marvin Harvey was traveled to Houston each summer and stayed in the background teaching players how to shoot free throws, which included private workouts with the best players in the WNBA and worked with John Lucas (NBA Player, Coach, and Player Development Coach), at the Westside Tennis Club, training NBA and male NCAA players. While there he was able to sit in on NBA Houston Rockets practices and games and continued to test his methods on the highest level of the game. 

 

TRANSITIONING PRO SKILL SETS

In 2000 the experiment was finalized. After he had coached one year as an assistant coach at the University of South Alabama, he was hired to transition his first NBA Player, Antonio Lang (Duke), from a post player to a perimeter player. This transition coined the phrase, “teaching shooting from the floor up” and Lang went on to finish his career in the NBA and had a celebrated career in Asia, where he became a Head Coach and now coaches in the NBA.

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Harvey returned to Orlando, Florida and started another private shooting program. It quickly turned into individual and small group shooting sessions as the Athletic Director at the Valencia Junior College had kids of his own that needed shooting help. Players from the Orlando Magic and different NBA teams came to sessions with Harvey at that facility, but one player in particular was born during that era; Raja Bell.

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At the time Raja had jumped from three NBA teams in what was going to be his fourth season coming up. He would either have to become a shooter or go overseas to play. He was known as a “defensive specialist” which in the NBA meant, “A player who couldn’t shoot”, but after spending time learning the 3-R’s, the next year he proved he could shoot the basketball with the Utah Jazz. On August 3, 2005, Bell signed with the Phoenix Suns. Bell responded to the presence of Steve Nash and became an extremely solid contributor. He started in all 79 games he played in, and finished the 2005–06 season averaging 14.7 points per game in 37.5 minutes per game.

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From there Harvey became the Shooting Instructor at Champions Sports Complex owned by Barry Larkin, Dee Brown, and Tony McGee. Both Barry and Dee had younger kids and challenged Harvey’s shooting theory, and insisted that he create an entry level shooting workout that younger kids could learn and then transition when they were strong enough or old enough. This was a great challenge for Harvey as he now had the opportunity to create the evolution of the shot. Created two programs that are highly recommended in today’s basketball. The “Amatuer  Shot'' (kids age 7-12) shooting form, which was an altered version of the 3 R's. The kid did all the same movements to create power but they “looked over the basketball” instead of “looking under” the ball. He tested the theory out on Dee’s daughter and Shane Larkin, both were very successful in college and the pros.
 

Having a conversation with Dell Curry about his son Stephen Curry, who at the time was in the seventh grade and had mastered the amateur shot, he told him the ideal time to transition him from the “Amatuer to the Pro” shot was the age of 13, or before he entered high school. “It is critical that he transitions because if he goes to high school with the ability to shoot that well he will go straight to varsity, and he goes straight to varsity, which is the first desire of every basketball player, he will NOT want to toy with or change his shot. When he finishes eighth grade don’t let him play AAU, start the transitioning process. This way he will have four years to make mistakes, miss shots, and master the Pro Shot.” Harvey tried to make it clear. 

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“There is no high school level shot, there is no college level shot, it’s Amateur or Pro.”

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Today Harvey teaches these shooting principles around the world, how to start the player out, when to transition, and how to develop their shot.

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The next year Tamika Catchings won a Championship in Russia on a team coached by Kevin Cook, and she asked Cook if he knew anyone in the states that could help her transition from the post to the perimeter. Cook made the call to Marvin Harvey, and after an assessment during the NBA All Star week, in Houston, Texas, Catchings hired Harvey to transition her game.

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The two started their training relationship in Orlando, Florida at the E.D.G.E Training Facility owned and designed by NBA Legend Dee Brown. When Catchings and Harvey met their she explained what she wanted from the training, she was very professional. She said, “I want to hire you to do three things. 1) help me win a WNBA Championship, 2) Transition my game to the perimeter, I want to play the game like everyone else, I want to be able to shoot like everyone else 3) Help me become the league MVP.” 

Ironically, Harvey had followed Pat Summit at the University of Tennessee where Catchings played and had watched her play many times, and at the last Final Four they had a brushed encounter or meeting. Her and her sister, Tauja Catching’s team’s had made it to the Final Four. So when she talked about transitioning to the perimeter that’s exactly where he thought she should be. At the same time there was another opportunity to test his methodology under pressure and strategic focus. 

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In 2008, Marvin Harvey opened the first “Shot Lab™ LLC” in Tampa, Florida. He designed it as a “one-shop-stop” where players could fly into Tampa… the airport was ten minutes from the Lab, downtown was ten minutes, and the mall was in between. The Shot Lab(™) was designed with a weight room, the 40 x 60 floating wood floor, a complete video analysis room, with a player’s lounge included. Catchings and other WNBA and NBA players were there frequently.

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In 2011, Catchings won the WNBA MVP Award, but Harvey and Catchings agreed to tear her shot down and start from scratch, after suffering a foot injury keeping her from going overseas. Disgusted with the frequent ways female players were getting injured, Harvey looked at the entirety of the methodology that had evolved from shooting to a skill-based conditioning portion. This portion included dribbling, passing and shooting, and together created a conditioning workout that was consistent with running sprints. That system was used to help players rehab from injuries but it wasn’t officially tested until Catchings. The Surgeon agreed with the “Integrated Skill and Mental Rehab” (ISR) plan, and Harvey was able to travel to Indiana and work with the Physical Therapist and together advance Tamika’s return to performance. They worked together strategically for ten (10) months, and by April of 2012 they had put the pieces back together. When they finished the ISR she was going into training camp in tip-top shape and she never looked better. In the 2012 WNBA season, the Indiana Fever won their first Championship, and Catchings was crowned MVP.

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Today the 3 R's is the most recognized shooting form in the world, not because of Marvin Harvey, but because Michael used it, Kobe copied it, and Raja Bell torched the NBA with it. Many people claim they are shot experts, or Shot Doctors, but not many people have put in as much research, experimenting, or work into mastering the knowledge of the shot like Marvin Harvey. The Scientific Method lays out a process for accessing, assessing, and researching all aspects of the thesis, and over the last four decades, thousands of players have benefited from his teachings, mostly overseas, but in the states, a number of players from the high school to the NBA level have sought the help of this “private-shooting-coach”. 

 

IT IS SAFE TO SAY, THERE IS ONLY ONE REAL SHOT DOCTOR…AND THAT HE CREATED THE FIRST REAL SHOT LAB.