Tyler Harvey – For the Love of the Game

Written for nbl.com.au by Tom Hersz

When you grow up around something, it’s easy to fall in love with it. That was basketball for Tyler Harvey.

The Hawks’ import guard, who is currently the fourth leading scorer in NBL21, is the son of a Division 1 College Referee. Growing up in Torrance, California, his father Frank, would referee games all over the West Coast and Tyler would go along with his Dad whenever he could.

Being around the game in an environment like that consumed Harvey and despite playing baseball as a child and being undersized for the hardwood, it was basketball that pulled at his heartstrings.

“My Dad was a College official ever since I can remember,” Harvey told NBL Media on Friday.

“I would just always remember showing up to the game 4 hours early – you know the refs have to get there early like the players – and I would just go on the court and shoot for the hour before the game; you know nobody’s really out there. I grew up being able to have that access, following my Dad around, going to different Colleges. Whenever he had California schools I was like ‘oh great, I get to go shoot at the gym’.

“So it started there I think, my love of the game, and I’ve known since I was a kid that I just love basketball; there’s something about it. I played baseball growing up as well, but there was something about basketball that had my heart and as young as I can remember, I’ve always had a basketball in my hands.”

Despite the passion he had for the game, success did not come easy for Harvey. He wasn’t a highly touted recruit coming into high school. He was small. He didn’t play AAU ball and he felt like he was overlooked.

Getting knocked back at times was tremendous motivation for Harvey though, to keep working on his game and prove the doubters wrong.

“My High School is known for academics and we were a powerhouse basketball school as well, but I really didn’t know that until I got there,” he explained.

“I went there my freshman year – I think I was 14 years old, 15 years old – and I was about 5’4”, 125lbs – who knows? I just remember for the summer, all incoming freshmen could try out for the summer team and try to impress the coaches, and I didn’t even make that team. So coming from a kid who loves basketball and was a pretty good player going up to high school, to not making that summer team was kind of an eye-opening experience for me that I needed to get better.

“Yes I was short, but I’ve always had the ability to shoot and create shots. I actually tried out for the baseball team that year as well. I ended up making the baseball team, but I remember the list came out and I told the baseball coach ‘You know, I don’t think I want to play baseball. My heart’s just in basketball.’ Ever since then, my whole dedication has been basketball and I ended up actually making that freshman team that year during trials.

“So that summer of not making the summer team, kind of lit that fire under me early, to really go out there and make that freshman team.”

His Dad also used his connections through College basketball to pick up some drills to show Harvey. He would pick people’s brains before games and then come home and help his son work on his game.

“It was tremendous to have my Dad be able to help me,” he recalled.

“He loved the game as well – he didn’t play of course, but he was around it and he loves basketball. So, I credit my dad a ton for always being there. We’d go to 24-Hour Fitness at midnight and shoot. You know, he’s working a job, he’s reffing and he took that time to rebound for me at midnight because nobody would be in the gym and that’s the only hour we could get in.

“Those memories, I will cherish forever. Just spending that time with your Dad and being able to work out with him.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Can confirm: Tyler Harvey is STILL on fire and is coming up CLUTCH for The Hawks ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HWKatBNE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HWKatBNE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/7SPoiGbxom">pic.twitter.com/7SPoiGbxom</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1352199462379089921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Harvey played JV in his sophomore year, not making the varsity team until his junior year, which is rare for a player that wants to play in College. He had a growth spurt around his sophomore and junior years, getting up to about 5’10” or 5’11”.

“You know, those two years playing varsity, I did pretty good,” he continued.

“I probably averaged 15 or 16 points, but just no real traction from any colleges and that was tough.”

Harvey had no Division I scholarship offers. Ultimately, Harvey followed a Division III Coach, who had recruited him (via his Dad of course) to Whitworth University. Jim Hayford then got hired by Eastern Washington University and wanted Harvey to join him there instead, but didn’t have a scholarship for him. So Harvey walked-on and then had to redshirt for a year until a scholarship became available.

After sitting out a year and playing sparingly as a freshman, just two years later as a junior, Harvey was the leading scorer in Division I Men’s Basketball. He declared for the NBA draft after his junior year, being selected by the Orlando Magic in the second round.

From no D-1 offers, to being an NBA draftee in just a few short years is quite a remarkable ascension.

“It’s crazy man,” Harvey admits.

“Coming into College, you just don’t know what to expect. I’m from California and I went to College at Eastern Washington. I honestly didn’t even know where the heck Eastern Washington was. They were like ‘Oh it’s by Gonzaga’, and I’m like ‘ok, I kind of know where Gonzaga’s at.’

“I think a lot of it is just belief. I’m a faith guy. I feel like God had a plan for me and I just had to trust that my journey will place me where I’m supposed to be.

“I’ve always had the inner belief in myself. I feel like you have to have that if you want to get anywhere in life. You have to have that self-belief so that when you do get the opportunity, you’ll be able to shine. But it was hard.

“It’s just continuously working for me. I would just stay in the gym. Even after games I’d stay and shoot. I’d go the gym at 12am, 1am. But, it just all happened kind of fast.

“We had some guys go down towards the end of my freshman year; we had 5 or 6 guys go down and that was my opportunity. Ever since then I’ve just tried to make the most out of that opportunity and not look back. I feel like everything always works itself out the way it’s supposed to.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">58 points<br>18/23 FG<br>12/16 3FG<br>10/11 FT<br><br>Tyler Harvey (<a href="https://twitter.com/YoungTRaaw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YoungTRaaw</a>) turned in the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBAGLeague?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBAGLeague</a> performance of the season over the weekend! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChangeTheGame?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChangeTheGame</a><a href="https://twitter.com/EWUMBB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EWUMBB</a> ?? <a href="https://twitter.com/MemphisHustle?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MemphisHustle</a> <a href="https://t.co/O33F2LF6rJ">pic.twitter.com/O33F2LF6rJ</a></p>&mdash; NBA G League (@nbagleague) <a href="https://twitter.com/nbagleague/status/1092558660780417024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Since his time at EWU, Harvey has played professionally in Italy, France, Germany and the G League, with a lot of success. He’s established a reputation as a lights out shooter, a gifted scorer and a great teammate.

It was that reputation that led Brian Goorjian to pick up the phone and see if Harvey would be interested in coming to the NBL.

“Before I even came here, I had a great conversation with Coach [Goorjian],” said Harvey.

“It was honestly a no-brainer for me. If Coach wanted me here, I was gonna come. And thankfully he wanted me to be a part of this team.

“I’ve said this before, I’m kind of spoilt because I get to learn from the best coach. That knowledge is hard to come by. How often do you get to play for debatably the best coach in Australian history? I get to pick his brain everyday.

“And he’s so transparent with me. We have conversations all the time about offensive schemes, defensive schemes, what we’re doing here and it’s nice having that. It’s like a cheat code.

“He knows so much and whenever I have a question he’s there to answer it. It’s been honestly a blessing being able to learn from him and he wants each of us on the team, not just me, to be their best selves. He allows us to be that and I’m thankful for that opportunity to be here and to learn from him.”

I bet if you asked Goorj, he’d be pretty thankful too. After all, Harvey is a big reason why the Hawks sit atop the NBL Ladder at 4-0.

Averaging 23.3 points, 2.8 assists, 1.8 steals, and 3 triples per game, while pushing 50/40/90 at .478 FG%, .444 3FG% and .938 FT%, Harvey has been electric at times. He’s had moments where he goes on these runs and gets the whole team going. He’s had moments where he’s single-handedly got them back into a game.

And then of course, he had that moment where he sealed their first win in Round 1 with an incredible put back dunk over Vic Law, coming out of nowhere to tip home Emmett Naar’s miss and ensure the Hawks started the season on the right foot.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Dagger Dunk ???<a href="https://twitter.com/YoungTRaaw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YoungTRaaw</a> sealed <a href="https://twitter.com/thehawks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@thehawks</a> W with the putback ??<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HWKatBNE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HWKatBNE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/dSqRZeb1Zp">pic.twitter.com/dSqRZeb1Zp</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1350360254991589377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 16, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Just how Harvey managed to find an opening amongst all of those trees in the lane to get a hand on that ball is quite remarkable.

“I honestly don’t know,” he chuckled.

“Honest to god, I’ve never had a tip-back slam in my life. As a basketball player, sometimes you just have a feel and a read. But honestly man, the ball just bounced the right way, I don’t know.

“I asked Emmett ‘was it going in?’, he’s like ‘I don’t think so’ and I’m like ‘alright, well I’m sorry if I did take your points’. We just wanted to win man.

“So, that doesn’t happen a lot for me – a put back slam. I don’t crash the offensive boards that often. But I’ll shout out my guy Paul Fabritz who is a strength trainer and vertical jump specialist. He helped tremendously this past summer as well.”

Harvey though, is much more a shooter than a dunker. And he has a tendency to get hot in a hurry too.

In his rookie season with the Erie BayHawks, he hit six straight threes late in the fourth quarter to help erase a 21-point deficit and send the game to overtime, leading to a win. Two years ago, when with the Memphis Hustle in the G League, Harvey went 12-16 from downtown and 18-23 overall on his way to 58 points!

Two weeks ago, once more against Brisbane, Harvey poured in 17 second-quarter points to erase a 13-point deficit and level the game at halftime.

He has the ability to make shots from all over the court and when he heats up like that, getting in that zone where he feels like every shot is going down, it really is beautiful to watch.

“Honestly, I always have that confidence that when I shoot, it’s going to go in,” explained Harvey.

“I feel like you have to have that if you want to be a great player. I talk a lot about ‘slow’ and trying to ‘live in the moment’ and ‘live present’. I work hard on breathing and just trying to focus on the moment at hand.

“As a hooper when you find that flow that we all look for, it’s something that is hard to explain. Sometimes things just work out like that and you can’t really explain it. But my whole goal, every game I step in, I just want to win; and if that means scoring, if that means assisting – whatever it is.

“I feel like the game will always tell you what needs to be done and you just have to make sure you’re present enough and in that moment to make the right read and the right plays.”

Of course one shot that stood out in that game was his floater. Corey “Homicide” Williams called Harvey’s float game “crazy” and proclaimed it “the deadliest weapon he has.”

But it’s no fluke. That is a shot that Harvey has worked on relentlessly over the years. If defenders give him space, he’ll knock down the three-ball and he has legit range out to 25 or 26 feet. However, when the defence closes out too hard, Harvey is quick to dribble by them and then when he sees the help coming, he goes to that floater.

“My trainer JR, back in Seattle, we really rep that out a lot,” Harvey explained of the time he’s put in on that shot.

“I’ve been working with JR for about 3 or 4 years now and it’s a shot that we feel like it’s hard to time when to block that, when to go for it. A lot of work has been put into that shot to perfect it per se; I mean going off the same leg, going off different legs. It’s a shot that I feel comfortable with [and] Coach allows me to shoot the floater if I’m open, which is nice.”

In that game against Brisbane, we saw Harvey shoot that floater out to about 16 feet, which is not something you see that often. But it looked so natural, that I was curious as to the deepest floater that he ever made in a game.

“As for the deepest floater, last year in Germany, the shot clock was going down,” he described.

“It was like two seconds and I was at the three-point line so I had to go off the ball screen and shoot the floater. It looked like I tried to shoot a three floating it, but I really had to shoot it from there and it went in. But I definitely don’t want to shoot three-point floaters. Sometimes you just get lucky.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="de" dir="ltr">Tough, aber wohl nicht tough genug ?‍?? <a href="https://twitter.com/YoungTRaaw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YoungTRaaw</a> mit dem Floater knapp hinter der Dreierlinie zum Ablauf der Shotclock. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/uuulmer?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#uuulmer</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/weareone?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#weareone</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/easyCreditBBL?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#easyCreditBBL</a><br><br>? Das Spiel seht ihr LIVE bei Magenta Sport unter <a href="https://t.co/mNGxaITnsD">https://t.co/mNGxaITnsD</a> <a href="https://t.co/9TC2EVvtgO">pic.twitter.com/9TC2EVvtgO</a></p>&mdash; ratiopharm ulm (@ratiopharmulm) <a href="https://twitter.com/ratiopharmulm/status/1272176119740076032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

What’s become clear in his short time in the NBL, is that Harvey can score in a variety of ways, but his range has to be respected. He’s already hit multiple threes from the K-Mart logo both in Nissan Arena and at the Snag Pit (Cairns Pop-Up Arena) and his ability to extend opposing defences, as well as then use his handles when they close out too hard is nothing new in his game.

Despite being a lefty, his skillset has drawn comparisons to possibly the most elite player in the world with that type of skillset. Harvey has been described as ‘Steph Curry-lite’ over the years by scouts and various media outlets, which is not something he takes lightly, but it’s also not a complete coincidence.

“Well first off, that’s humbling,” he acknowledged.

“I mean, you’re talking about the greatest shooter debatably in the history of basketball. You know it’s funny, in College, my guard development coach – and he’s actually the head coach at Eastern now, Shantay Legans – we would study Steph Curry film religiously, probably about four times a week. He probably got sick and tired of watching Steph Curry film.

“I don’t know, I saw a lot of my game in him. Not really the most athletic, but really crafty, so I really didn’t try to pattern my game after him, but of course Steph’s Steph and you’re talking about the greatest.

“But to even be mentioned like that is very humbling and I do study him a lot and what he does is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.”

This afternoon, Harvey and the Hawks will try to extend their undefeated run to five games when they travel to Melbourne to face the South East Melbourne Phoenix. And a matchup that many are looking forward to is that of Harvey going head to head with Keifer Sykes.

They are different players, but both have been electric at times in helping their teams. Sykes is smaller than Harvey, but can also do damage in multiple ways, not least of which is off the bounce.

It’s shaping up to be a really fun battle between that pair, but Harvey is focused solely on his team and what they need to do as a collective.

“I don’t get involved with the whole matchup,” Harvey clarified.

“At the end of the day it’s a team game, it’s not just me out there. I feel like we have a really deep squad and if we play the right way and do what we have to do, it’s going to a great game.

“Every game for us is huge. We were picked what, second to last in the league? So for us, we need to improve every game and we need not to be satisfied. We just have to take each game as it comes and that’s been Coach’s message to us. We can’t look at our record; we have to look at now.

“South East Melbourne is a great team and this is going to be a great test for us, and we’re just going to go out there and do what we can.”

Following today’s game, the Hawks will head home to Wollongong to prepare for their first home game of NBL21. After so long on the road dating back to preseason – when they had to relocate to Albury around Christmas time due to the latest COVID outbreak in Sydney – the Hawks are excited to play in front of the Hawkheads on Wednesday night.

Harvey knows what’s at stake for this team in terms of not only proving the doubters wrong, but also in terms of ensuring they have a secure membership base. He and his teammates have been following ticket sales and are excited to show their fans what this new-look Hawks team is really about.

“The support we have here is great,” he said.

“We’re looking forward to finally being home after – I don’t even know how many cities we’ve been in the last two months. But we’re excited to be here for them. I’ve heard they’re great fans. We’re looking forward just to having a great game against another great team.

I don’t want to look too far ahead but Melbourne’s the team; a great team this year. I think everybody on our team is happy to be back home in front of those fans and we just can’t wait to be there and see their support.”

And maybe, some young kid from the Illawarra will get there early with their Mum or Dad and fall in love with the game as Harvey did all those years ago.