This is episode 64 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, back on Zoom after too long. I’m Dylan Haugen, with Hunter Castona, and the guests are arguably the highest-jumping brothers on earth: Jordan Pimstone (episode 15 alum, 45-inch tester, now a full-time strength coach) and his younger brother Ethan: 6’1”, 22, Oak Park, California, and the most out-of-nowhere arrival the dunk community has seen in years. Hunter and I met Ethan at Dunk Camp 2025 the day he tested 47.5 inches and hit his first Eastbay within hours of each other, a sentence that should not be possible. This is the story of where he came from, which is, genuinely, nowhere.
The latest of late bloomers
Ethan’s childhood was every sport (lacrosse, soccer, baseball, flag football) with basketball on top: at 10 he was dropping 30 in rec leagues. Then puberty simply didn’t arrive. He entered high school at 5’4”, pre-pubescent, weak, corner-three-only, and his freshman season, where his literal goal was to touch the bottom of the backboard, was his last organized basketball. What followed, in his own cheerful telling, was the Fortnite era: 15 years old, ten hours a day gaming, the fluffiest and least active stretch of his life. The jumping gene was always there in the background (the Pimstone staircase still has stickers marking the brothers’ childhood max touches; they dove over pillows competitively), but dunking felt impossible enough that he didn’t bother dreaming it.
At 17, suddenly around six feet, two things happened: a first rim-grazer dunk, and, inspired by his perpetually-lifting brother, the weight room, where he went full bodybuilder for four years: surplus eating to the point of feeling sick, 200-plus pounds in the morning, light weights, high reps, mass at any cost. His stated life philosophy in that era, quoted to Jordan during their two-year argument: “I don’t care how high I jump. What’s jumping going to do for me in life? I want my legs to be big.”
The LA Fitness Zion years
Post-puberty, post-bodybuilding-bulk Ethan started playing pickup at LA Fitness and coming home with unverifiable legends: posters, hang-on-the-rim finishes, “mean things done to people,” all unrecorded, all dunked “like a big man”: two hands down, nothing fancy, no Windmill, no concept of trick dunks. He called himself the LA Fitness Zion. Jordan, already deep in the dunk world, heard the stories and begged him to train. Ethan refused. For two years.
Then one day Jordan dragged him to the training facility and tested him: 44.5 inches, in 2023, off zero jump training, just pickup basketball and bodybuilding. Jordan’s begging intensified; Ethan’s refusal continued, complicated by the detail Jordan supplied: Ethan’s knees were destroyed. He’d play for hours through pain that felt “like my knee was going to literally explode,” then be unable to climb stairs for a week, the untreated-hooper jumper’s-knee spiral we’ve documented on a dozen episodes. The holdout finally ended about eight months before this recording. He hasn’t looked back.
The strangest rehab in this podcast’s history: sprinter first
Here’s the wrinkle that makes the story unique: when Ethan finally let Jordan coach him, his goal wasn’t dunking. It was walking on as a Division I sprinter. So Jordan, now coaching full time, wrote what he describes as genuinely weird cycles: rehab the flared patellar tendons first (months of pure rehab; you can’t sprint at max intent on knees that angry), then build sprint volume and frequency, with timing gates at the facility Ethan now works at confirming he was genuinely in the D1 conversation, all while quietly progressing the lifts and jumps Jordan knew were the real destiny. Speed and jumping travel together, and Jordan was patiently building both while letting his brother chase the track dream.
Ethan’s confession about the rehab period is the most relatable part: like every athlete, he didn’t fully listen. He’d sneak off to play basketball mid-rehab and set himself back a month at a time, because flared tendons are exactly that fragile. The lesson he learned the expensive way is the one Ben’s episode and Finn’s episode keep teaching: the rehab timeline is the timeline.
Dunk Camp 2025: a 47.5 and the most absurd first Eastbay ever
The brothers’ plan was to debut together at Dunk Camp 2025; Jordan’s back spasms flared four days out and he missed it, so Ethan arrived alone, knowing literally nobody (no dunk Instagram, no community contacts, recognizing only Isaiah and Kilganon from afar), expecting to be satisfied with a 45. He tested 47.5. The same day, he hit his first Eastbay ever, while touching over 12 feet, prompting Jordan’s claim on this episode that Ethan may own the highest max touch before a first Eastbay in human history, seven-footers possibly excepted. Hunter and I were standing right there, and the gym’s collective reaction was the correct one: who is this guy?
Ethan’s review of the week echoes every first-timer’s: he had no idea a community this tight-knit existed, the experience exceeded anything he imagined, and he’s going back. The test also flipped the internal switch the years of begging never had: “I really need to lock in on this. This could be something serious.” The title number is already real: the 48 has since arrived, and given that he is at most eight months into actual jump training, atop a bodybuilder’s strength base and sprinter’s speed, the ceiling conversation here is genuinely uncomfortable. The 50 club should check the locks.
The bag problem (a good problem)
Ethan’s current state is the inverse of most dunkers: world-class bounce, nearly empty bag. He never low-rimmed (Jordan did, as a kid; Ethan only chased touch height), never windmilled in the LA Fitness era, never considered a 360. Which makes him this show’s favorite kind of project: as we keep saying, 99 percent of dunkers have dunks available at their current vertical that they simply haven’t repped, and Ethan has roughly all of them available. Every session for the next two years is a new-dunk session if he wants it to be. With Jordan coaching him daily and the brothers’ combined documentation now flowing (he finally has the Instagram), the come-up is going to happen in public, fast.
Follow both Pimstones; the brother-vs-brother vertical race alone is worth it (Jordan’s 45 is officially under siege from inside the house). Next episode is Nolan Larson on injury, identity, and the love of dunking. Peace out.