When most shooting practice barely scratches the surface, Coach Dave Love works at a different level entirely. Drawing on experience working with players and coaches at the highest level, a formal education in Skill Acquisition in Sport, and peer-reviewed research on practice design and shooting mechanics, Coach Love brings a depth of understanding that changes how coaches coach — and how players develop.
Most coaches spend their whole career teaching shooting the way they were taught. Their players get a little better, then plateau. They don't always know why — because without a framework for understanding how skill actually develops, it's hard to separate the things that matter from the things that just feel productive.
Coach Dave Love's work solves that problem. Not because he discovered something nobody else has ever thought of. But because he's spent fifteen-plus years coaching at the NBA level, formally studying how players learn, testing his methods against peer-reviewed research, and measuring outcomes with the precision that professional sport demands.
The result is a set of frameworks that give coaches a clear, evidence-supported way to diagnose where a player is, design practice that actually develops skill, and measure whether it's working. Frameworks that replace guesswork with understanding. And understanding changes everything about how quickly your players improve.
Coach Dave Love's opinions come from experience. But he's always asked the question that most coaches don't: why does this work?
Pursuing that question led him to a formal Master's degree in Skill Acquisition in Sport at Munster Technological University — not to become an academic, but to understand the science well enough to apply it to real coaching problems. It led to peer-reviewed publications that test his methods against the research. And it made him a named NBA practitioner stakeholder in a 27-month international research grant — contributing to the science, not just consuming it.
What that means for you: when Coach Love explains why a practice structure works, or why a mechanical cue transfers to games, or why a player's development has stalled — he's not just giving you his opinion. He's giving you an opinion that's been tested, educated, and proven.
The hardest part of coaching shooting isn't knowing what good mechanics look like. It's knowing what adjustments will actually lead to improved results. Data and research provide an objective edge for coaching.
Coach Love's framework for measuring the shooting motion objectively — foot width, spin axis, ball path, release — each quantified, tracked, and compared over time. When he identifies the problem, he's reading data, not working from instinct.
The same data-driven lens applied to NBA Hawkeye tracking — 3D shot capture at 60 frames per second — to measure how players actually perform in games.
Now coaches and parents all around the world can get a data-informed approach to shooting for their players, with the CDL Coaching Toolbox.
The real proof of any coaching framework isn't how it sounds — it's what it produces. Coach Dave Love's work spans multiple NBA franchises — the Phoenix Suns, Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Dallas Mavericks — and he continues to work at the NBA level today.
Across those environments, Coach Love has worked with players and coaches at every stage of development — from rookies navigating their first professional season to veterans rebuilding their games — and with coaching staffs and analytics departments looking to build the organizational shooting development systems that create lasting change.
At the NBA level, results are measurable and the margin for error is small. The framework has been tested in that environment repeatedly. That's not a credential to impress you — it's evidence that what Coach Love teaches actually works when the stakes are highest. And if it works there, it works in your gym too.
A growing part of Coach Love's work is coach education. Alongside his NBA work, he now consults for NCAA programs and international professional teams — deepening how their staffs teach shooting and apply skill-acquisition science.
The best coaches in the world are relentless learners, and Coach Love is often the specialist they bring in to pressure-test ideas, add a shared framework, and sharpen the details. It's a partnership between experts — and it's the same knowledge he now makes available to you.
From rookies finding their footing to veterans rebuilding their games — a look at players who trusted the process, and how their shooting changed.
Drafted into the NBA as a non-shooter, Aaron improved 30% from the free-throw line before his rookie year even began — setting the stage to become an 80%+ free-throw shooter and a 40% shooter from three.
Dewayne struggled to find his place in the NBA as a ~55% free-throw shooter. He rebuilt it into an 80%+ stroke from the line — and became a legitimate threat from three.
Playing for Real Madrid, Facu has become a 90/50/40 threat across multiple seasons in the ACB and EuroLeague — some of the stiffest competition outside the NBA.
Melvin reached out after a year of struggles and bounced back with a 90/50/50 season — and a renewed confidence in his shot.
NBA players and staffs, D1 head coaches, and national-team programs.
The newsletter is where Coach Love's experience, education, and research becomes practical guidance for your coaching — delivered free, every week.