This is episode 38 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, me and Hunter Castona, and it’s the announcement episode. I’m Dylan Haugen, 17, and I am not playing high school basketball this season. I’ve played basketball most of my life, so this is the full reasoning, on the record, plus Hunter’s own quitting story, which is different from mine in instructive ways. The one thing I want clear up front: nobody pushed me out and I’m not blaming anyone. I love dunking more than I love basketball, and at some point that simple sentence is the whole decision.
Where the decision actually started
Last season I was placed on the sophomore team. I’m not going to litigate whether that was right; it was honestly a fun year, six in-game dunks including a poster and an off-the-backboard lob. But it was the season the math became unavoidable. My vertical was around 38-39 going in and dropped hard during the year. Knee pain hit an all-time high: quad tendon, patellar tendon, all of it. I was on JumpX at the time and barely trained, because school ran 8 to 3, practice ran 3 to 5:30, and I’d get home in the dark with no will to lift. Saturday became my only rest day; Sunday was the one dunk session I lived for all week.
The thing I had to admit is that I am not a freak athlete. Freaks can play five to seven days a week and keep their bounce. I’m a moderately gifted athlete who built his way to a 40-inch vertical through training, and I could feel basketball taking it back every single week. We did a whole episode on why in-season vertical gains are mostly a myth; last season I was the case study.
The summer that proved it
When the season ended, my AAU team had fallen apart, so I just didn’t play summer ball. The results of that accidental experiment decided everything:
- Utah Dunk Camp: officially tested 41.5 inches, my all-time PR, on knees that finally didn’t hurt.
- Wisconsin Dunk Camp: first behind-the-back, first Hide-and-Seek, probably jumping even higher than Utah.
- The pattern: knee pain at an all-time low, jumping at an all-time high, in the only stretch of my life with no basketball load.
Then fall basketball started, two days a week, and even that was enough to wreck my training and my sessions. Two days. The forces I produce now are much bigger than a year ago, which means every basketball practice costs more than it used to. I sat with the question Hunter has been asking me all year: I could be one of the best dunkers in the world in a few years if I prioritize it, so why am I spending the season on the thing I love less? I’ll probably still play a rec league with friends, one day a week, for fun, because dunking is basketball in a way and one day is a load I can handle. But the priority order is now permanent: training and dunking first.
There’s also the honest career math. NBA minimum is a million dollars a year, and my odds of the NBA at 5’11” with my skill investment are effectively zero; there will always be a 6’8” guy exactly as good as me at basketball. At dunking, there is no 6’8” guy ahead of me. Hunter said on the episode he thinks I’m the best or close to the best 17-year-old dunker in the world right now. I don’t hand out that label for myself, but I believe the version of it that matters: my ceiling in this sport is real, and it’s mine to reach.
Hunter’s version: when a coach makes you hate the game
Hunter quit basketball too, but his story has a different engine, and he told it in full for the first time. Junior year he made varsity and started early in the season while the football players were still at their state run. Then one road game, against a 1-3-1 zone he hadn’t seen in years, he committed two turnovers from the top of the zone, got pulled immediately, and played five or fewer minutes the rest of the season. There was a game where he scored three straight buckets and got benched at the next timeout, never to return. Come playoffs he didn’t touch the floor. Other kids’ parents, not his own, were asking the coach why he wasn’t playing. By the end he was so checked out he half-wanted the team to lose so the misery of practice would end.
He still loved the game, just not that version of it: his AAU summer after (better coaches, real connection with teammates) was one of his favorites. But between the coach, the COVID-year mask requirement colliding with his asthma, and everything else, he didn’t go out senior year. And the redemption arc happened at an open gym: playing pickup at his local club, he started taking two to five dunk attempts between games, micro-sessions, and those minutes became the best part of his week. Around then he found my content, we talked about starting a dunk page (I’m apparently the first person in the community he discussed posting with, which I’ll treasure), he set up a tripod, and the rest is the comeback story from episode 34.
The contrast matters: I quit because I love something else more. Hunter quit because someone drained the love out of basketball, and dunking is where it came back. Both are legitimate exits. As Smoove told us last episode about why he chose dunk contests over pro basketball: it’s only you out there. Nobody can bench you.
Where we’re both at right now
My recent stretch backs the decision up. The Winona session went great (low-40s jumping). The week after, I hit my third behind-the-back and one of my best Eastbays. I got an LA Fitness membership and have been pushing real weight for the first time, 365 on quarter squats for an easy 3 last week. Wednesday I hit an Eastbay and nearly a Hide-and-Seek. Zero basketball load, and everything is trending the right way at once.
Hunter is in the harder spot, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. His past year has been a cycle: peak session, new pain, load management, rebuild, repeat, every two to three months. The current entry is brand-new achy quad pain in both legs, which kept him out of this week’s session and out of a 1v1 dunker tournament he had to hand his slot to someone else for. The encouraging part: it’s dull rather than sharp, his technique is the best of his life, and his lifting feels great. The discouraging part is the not-knowing. If you’ve wondered why his posting goes quiet for weeks at a time, this is the answer; he stockpiles his peak-session clips and rides out the valleys.
Should you quit your sport?
The advice section, because the DMs are coming either way: no, this episode is not telling you to quit basketball. Hunter said it directly: for most dunkers who also hoop, keep both. The decision flips only when three things are all true, the way they were for me: your jumping has reached forces your body can’t fund alongside a full season, your goals are explicitly dunking-first, and the honest answer to “which one do you love more” has stopped being close. If you’re young and jumping under 35 inches, your season is still mostly free training. If you’re pushing 40-plus with tendon pain every practice, you’re where I was, and you already know the answer; you’re just waiting for permission. This is the permission.
The experiment is now live: a full year of me with zero extra load. We’ll document all of it here and on YouTube. Episode 23 has the year that got me to 41.5; the next chapter starts now. Next episode is the biomechanics of dunking with Sam Liu. Comment with what you’d do in my spot, and any dunker you want us to interview next.