This is episode 45 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, me and Hunter Castona on the episode we’ve wanted to make since the show started: the myths. I’m Dylan Haugen, and what follows is everything TikTok, Instagram, and decades of basketball folklore get wrong about dunking and jumping, corrected by two people who measure their rims with tape measures and write their lifts down.
Myth 1: Rims are 10 feet
Almost none are. I’ve measured essentially every hoop I’ve dunked on for two years and found exactly one true 10’ rim; Hunter’s found three or four, mostly at colleges (UCF, the Dunk Camp Utah rim, the UWM gym). The typical installed hoop is off by anywhere from a quarter inch to three or four inches, and commercial gyms like LA Fitness are notorious for running low. This is the entire reason the rim-height honesty debate from episode 11 exists: if you assume 10’, you’re probably wrong in one direction or the other.
Myth 2: NBA player verticals
Michael Jordan’s 48. Wilt’s 50. LeBron’s high-40s. None of them were ever tested, and Jordan himself has said he never measured his vertical, so as far as we’re concerned he doesn’t have a 48; he has a great-looking maybe-44. (To be unambiguous: MJ is my GOAT. This is arithmetic, not hate.) At 6’6”, head-at-rim is roughly a 42, and I’ve never seen footage of Jordan’s head meaningfully above the rim, let alone eight inches above it. The highest credibly tested NBA-adjacent vertical is around 48 (Keon Johnson at the combine), with a measured standing reach about eight inches below average for his height, which conveniently introduces the sub-myth: your standing reach is probably wrong too. I get DMs weekly from people my height claiming 72-inch reaches. At Dunk Camp the reach is measured with the opposite shoulder dropped, stretching maximally, and the numbers come out honest. The real tested-49-plus club is the one that deserves the credit: Isaiah, Kilganon, Tony Crosby, Donovan, Dak.
Myth 3: 5,000 calf raises (and other miracle exercises)
Everything that’s actually moved my vertical is boring: jump a lot, squat heavy, power clean heavy. We both do calf raises, loaded heavy for sets of 12-20, progressively, like any other lift; the myth is the 5,000-bodyweight-reps-a-day version, and its cousins: every absurd-looking Instagram exercise engineered for views. The tell is simple: if the top jumpers in the world don’t do it, it isn’t the secret. The credible programs (THP, Kilganon’s JMX) are built on research and run on simple movements with intelligent variation; John Evans has literally never given Isaiah the same training week twice, but the ingredients are squats, cleans, pulls, jumps, and loading, not circus tricks. One related warning: be wary of testimonials from athletes who were already freaks before they joined anything. Isaiah is a real program success story (THP built the Isaiah you see). The guy who trained nothing and then credits a program for his genetics is not.
Myth 4: That double-up wasn’t a push-off
Every double-up is a push-off. Every handoff is a push-off. Including the ones that “felt clean.” Grabbing a ball off a person’s hands necessarily loads downward through them, even if it’s an inch of boost. That doesn’t make them bad: I love double-ups, I taught Hunter his first one (zero to 9’10.5” in a single session, sorry to every pro he now jumps over), and a Dubble Up Underboth is genuinely one of the hardest dunks alive; it’s the only low-rim dunk I’ve never solved. The myth is in the scoring: judges hand straight tens to Dubble Up X’s that Hunter and I hit first-try, while no-prop dunks of triple the difficulty score the same. In a FIBA setting a basic double-up should cap around an eight. It’s the same judging-literacy problem from the scoring episodes, in miniature.
Myth 5: Strength training makes you slow
Outdated, and only half-survivable as a myth because of one true edge case: strength work with zero jumping attached. Paired with jumping, which is how every legitimate program runs it, heavy training is what breaks the plateau that pure jumping volume eventually hits. The bodybuilder counterexample cuts the other way too: seven-time Mr. Olympia strength with no jumping reps doesn’t produce Isaiah, because Isaiah is a decade of jumps plus the strength. Hunter’s own experiment is the cleanest demo: calisthenics and upper-body work took him from 155 to nearly 180 pounds, and his punch power, hand speed, arm swing, and power clean all jumped with it. Look at the top of the sport: Kilganon, Isaiah, Donovan are all visibly strong up top. Donovan’s every-dunk-is-a-punch era coincides exactly with his 30-pound year.
Myth 6: Pros are just genetic freaks
Partially true, mostly misused. Yes, every elite dunker has above-average genetics; I won’t pretend otherwise about myself either. The myth is the conclusion people draw: that training is decorative. The honest framing is the one we keep repeating: don’t compare yourself to outliers. If your training plan is copied from the guy who jumps seven days a week with no lifting and never gets hurt (hi, Dillan), you’re planning around someone else’s body. Model the trained elites instead: what Kilganon and Isaiah actually do is a program, and programs are copyable.
Myth 7: Slow progress means failure
The DM I get constantly: “I’m plateaued, I only gained three inches in four months.” Three inches in four months is spectacular. At the elite end, gains are measured in half-inches per year; Isaiah plateaued for roughly two years and dipped at one point, with the best coach in the sport. If your vertical is going up at all, on any timescale, the training is working. The beginners’ curve is steep and the advanced curve is nearly flat, and confusing the two is how people quit programs that are succeeding.
Myth 8: A 40-inch vertical is average
I have a 41.5 and I know of maybe two other people in Minnesota with a verified 40. When Isaiah calls a 45 “mid,” he means mid among the ten best jumpers alive, and clipping that out of context has convinced a generation that their 38 is embarrassing. A 38 dunks. A 35 dunks for most reaches. And the related lie in my DMs, “you’re lucky, I’d need a 42 just to dunk,” is almost always a standing-reach measurement error (see Myth 2).
Myth 9: One percent of people can dunk
Even that famous stat oversells it. The realistic dunking population is roughly ages 14 to 30 (below that, most can’t touch net; above it, most have moved on), and within that band it’s a small minority. If you can dunk on a true 10’ rim, you are rarer than the top one percent of the global population at this skill. Act accordingly: any vertical over 30 is genuinely good, and every inch past it is compounding rarity.
That’s the list. If you want a part two or a deep-dive on any single myth, tell us in the comments; this one was a blast to make. Next episode goes all the way into the genetics question with Donovan Hawkins. Subscribe if you’re new, and bring us your myths.