I sat down with my friend and fellow DunkMan League athlete Avante "The Joker" Nichols for the Dunk Talk Podcast, and we went all the way back to the beginning. In the interview, Avante told me he got his first dunk near the end of sixth grade, when he was 12. The story starts with a kid who kept finding a way to get into the gym and jump.
We also got into the jump from basketball to professional dunking, how a 360 Eastbay off the side of the glass started getting attention, and what it felt like to compete in the first DunkMan League season. I’m Dylan Haugen, and I’ve been around a lot of this same dunk world with Avante, so I wanted to hear how the whole thing looked from his side.
If you want a little more context for the league season, we covered Group Stage A in another episode, then later went through all four group stages. Avante’s story is a different view of that same first season, from being in the crowd to standing on the floor himself.
He played every sport before basketball stuck
Avante described himself as a pretty athletic kid. He tried hockey, baseball, soccer, tennis, football, and just about anything he could sign up for. Basketball started to stick around fourth or fifth grade, but dunking was already on his mind. He told me he had been trying on five- and six-foot rims when he was younger.
Once he was in elementary school, he could get into the middle school gym, and by sixth grade he was there constantly. He’d finish his schoolwork, spend hours jumping, and ask friends to throw him lobs with whatever they could find. Usually that meant a tennis ball. One day, when they didn’t have a ball, they threw a shoe.
The tennis-ball lob was one of the first moments when he felt like he might be getting the hang of dunking. Later, at an AAU practice in sixth grade, a friend threw him another lob. Avante said he got about three fingers on the ball and it went in. That was the one he counted as his first dunk, and he was excited enough to tell the whole school.
His first in-game dunk came in seventh grade on a fast break. He said somebody ran in from half court and tried to block him, which gave him a little help finishing it. The crowd went crazy, and after that he kept adding to what he could do.
Kobe got him started, then Jonathan Clark stood out
Kobe Bryant was the player who made Avante want to play basketball and dunk. He remembered watching Kobe’s behind-the-back move into a dunk and thinking he needed to get that into his own game. At the time, Avante didn’t have a phone, so there weren’t endless clips to watch. Later, around eighth grade, he started following Zay, Jordan Kilganon, and the AND1 players.
Then Jonathan Clark caught his attention. Avante liked that Clark was a teacher, someone who could be part of the school world he knew and still do things that seemed unbelievable. He started pulling ideas from the dunkers he watched, especially Clark’s style and variations that stood out to him.
That admiration came full circle in the league. Avante and Clark had already met on the TV show, so competing on the same floor felt less like meeting a stranger and more like getting to share the moment with somebody who helped keep him interested in dunking.
College basketball and dunking started to overlap
Avante’s basketball path took him from Georgia to junior college in Kansas. He described the move as a real adjustment: a small town, living away from home, early mornings, and basketball taking up a lot of the day. He was still playing college basketball when we recorded the episode, and he was honest about being pulled between that path and the chance to go all in on dunking.
Some of his best dunks weren’t even the ones he filmed. After practice, he’d catch a missed layup, finish with a Windmill on the other side, or put one back with a Double Pump. At first his teammates reacted every time. By his second year, they were used to seeing it. That’s when he started recording more of the stranger ideas he was trying.
He said he had never lifted legs before college and had barely stretched in high school. The preparation for DunkMan got him to think more about stretching, recovery, and body control, especially because he was still practicing and playing basketball at the same time. He spent a couple of days researching what to do before dunking in front of a big crowd, then worked those ideas into a schedule that already had a lot going on.
For a while, professional dunking didn’t feel like a real option to him. He thought of himself as a basketball player, while the dunkers he watched seemed like people he’d never meet. A viral clip from a 360 Eastbay off the side of the glass changed what felt possible. Contest opportunities followed, then 2K called him to perform dunk animations during his sophomore year, and a few months later he was on the DunkMan TV show alongside people he had watched for years.
Competing alongside his inspirations
When the league first became a real possibility, Avante said he felt more nervous than excited. Nobody knew exactly where it would go, or what it would mean for dunking to become a televised sport. Then the season began to take shape, and he found himself around people he had once thought of as celebrities.
He was close enough to Atlanta to watch the first group stage before his own week arrived. Seeing the dunks in person felt different from watching on a screen. He brought up the sound of the rim, the crowd, and the moment Cam Hazzard hit a power dunk that left him frozen for a while. He was watching the season and counting down to his own turn.
Avante said his Group B performance felt like coming home. He had around 15 or 20 tickets for family and friends, and even that wasn’t enough for everyone who wanted to come. The cheering made the event feel personal, while the scale of the league made the whole thing feel much bigger than a regular contest.
A first-try finish in front of his inspiration
Before Group B, Avante struggled to settle on a plan. He was watching what the other dunkers might do and trying to figure out what would still feel like his own. Some ideas depended on a precise pass off the glass, and he wasn’t sure he could get those consistently. When Jonathan Clark went a different direction, Avante went for the dunk he had been thinking about.
He landed the Toe Touch on his first attempt. He told me that doing it in front of Clark was one of his main goals, and that it felt great when it worked. Avante had met Clark on the TV show already, which made being on the floor together feel less intimidating. He could appreciate the moment and compete, while still feeling like the kid who had watched Clark’s dunks and wondered how a teacher was doing all that.
For the group final, he had two dunks in mind: a 360 Toe Touch variation off the glass and a Free Throw Line dunk he had kept secret. The passer he had planned to work with was unavailable two days before the event, so a former high school teammate stepped in. They had about an hour and a half to practice together.
The first glass attempt didn’t connect. On another, Avante caught the ball and got the dunk to the front rim. The Free Throw Line pass came late once and then gave him a clean chance, but the ball came off the back rim. He came away from the final without landing either dunk. He had entered it in first place, and the experience gave him a clearer idea of how much coordination and repetition he wanted before the next contest.
He still finished 11th overall in his first year. Avante said he was proud of what he did as a newcomer, and that now he understood the format and what areas he wanted to work on. He talked about repeating his planned dunks until they felt dependable. He was still figuring out the balance with college basketball, but he sounded clearer about the work dunking at that level would take.
The Bulls Fest dream came back in Chicago
After the league season, Avante won the Bulls Fest dunk contest in Chicago. He jumped over Benny the Bull, and later got to eat at a restaurant with the trophy in hand. He described the outdoor contest as unpredictable, and one of his early attempts nearly hurt his ankle, but the day ended with him taking the win.
There was also the dream he had months earlier. He remembered flashes of a trophy, a restaurant, a crowd, and Benny the Bull without knowing what any of it meant. When those details showed up at Bulls Fest, he started recognizing the pieces. When he connected them for me, I told him that was wild.
For more about Avante, I put together Avante Nichols’s Dunk Talk profile. He’s also listed on the Dunkademics pro-dunker roster.
His advice was simple: keep jumping and enjoy it
When I asked what he’d tell somebody trying to become a dunker, Avante kept it simple: jump, take care of your body, and have fun. He added that people shouldn’t compare themselves with somebody else or try to become another dunker. Their style has to be their own.
He and I talked about how many years of work can sit behind the clips people see online. Avante started trying to dunk as a kid, and he was 21 when we recorded the episode. I was 18 then, still early in my own timeline. The polished clips and big stages are only a small part of it. Most of the story is the hours in the gym, the practice after practice, and finding a reason to keep coming back.
If you want the wider picture of what it meant to reach the league, I talked about my own path to DunkMan in Episode 72. For Avante, this conversation fills in what that season felt like from inside Group B, from his first dunk in a school gym to standing on the court with the people who inspired him.