This is episode 61 of the Dunk Talk Podcast. I’m Dylan Haugen, and Ben Hopkins is back to tell the story everyone at Dunk Camp 2025 watched in real time and Instagram called “a movie”: he won the 10’ contest, and the FIBA 3×3 Edmonton invite that comes with it, on a knee he knew was going to fail, with a pain budget he set at eight out of ten and then spent. I competed in the same contest (my own recap is in episode 60), and Ben’s win was the most dramatic thing that happened all week. Required disclaimer before the story: this is documentation, not a recommendation. Don’t do what Ben did.
The setup: rehabbing into camp, and a day one that cost too much
Ben’s knee story started a month before camp: he switched training cycles to make his rotating Jump Master schedule land on Saturday group sessions, and the change lit up his patellar tendinopathy. The rehab plan back was disciplined: off-vert jumps only, no running approaches, leg extension isos, wall sits even on rest days, and the hardest discipline of all, doing less. His final pre-camp session at 60 percent effort still flared the knee the next day, so he flew to Utah genuinely unsure what was possible.
Then day one happened, and adrenaline rewrote the plan: Ben had his best jumping day ever. Head fully above the rim on a height check for the first time, his best Underboth, his best Tamale, the session that put his name in every camp conversation. The pain read as a manageable two-or-three; the damage, he now knows, was adrenaline-masked and much worse. His hindsight verdict is honest: it set his rehab back significantly, and it was worth it. Days two and three he spectated with his leg propped (missing the 3-on-2-on-1, which hurt him spiritually), managing the one variable most people miss: compressive load. He kept the leg near-straight all day, even under desks, because a bent knee loads the patellar tendon even at rest; standing up after sitting bent was his worst pain trigger.
The contest: format, pressure, and a phone call to mom
The 10’ contest ran 20-plus dunkers across two hoops (two dunks, three attempts each; top three per hoop to a finals where scores reset), WDA scoring, and the official FIBA balls: size-six women’s circumference at men’s weight, with strange grooves, issued new and nowhere near broken in. Half the field spent Tuesday and Wednesday dribbling them on concrete to make them cuffable. The stakes were singular: winner goes to FIBA 3×3 Edmonton in early August.
Ben’s strategy is the same adaptive system he described in his first episode, now refined: hold a preset A/B list and read the field: if competitors are making dunks, escalate (J Rich, then Tamale); if they’re missing, bank the safer make (Windmill, Reverse Pump). The mental load was the harder half: everyone had named him the favorite, he hates expectations, and the FIBA prize made every conversation about his game plan. His solution, which I love: he walked outside and called his mom, specifically because she knows nothing about dunking, just to hear a voice say “go do the thing, bro.”
His physical plan, stated to me with a straight face: stop if the pain exceeded eight out of ten. He knew it was clearing five almost guaranteed. Warmups were a cat-and-mouse Isaiah Rivera later told him he knows well: fine at one effort level, spiking with a tiny bit more, never predictable, peaking at a four.
The dunks: a punched Windmill, a 10-second J Rich, and an off-vert finish
Dunk one: going third with no field data, he hit the highest Windmill he could, punched first try, pain matching warmups. Optimism crept in. Dunk two: the field was making things (a thunderous double-up one-hander, cradles being mimed on the sideline), so the escalation tree said J Rich. His second attempt rattled out back-rim-front-rim-back-rim, an agonizing near-make that would have been one of his best ever. The third attempt is the one people will retell: he jumped, the pain arrived, and mid-air the undersized FIBA ball slipped off his fingertips during the transfer, visibly leaving his hand in the footage. What followed was the time-dilation every athlete knows from their scariest moment: a flight that “felt like thirty minutes,” a conscious mid-air scoop to get his fingers back on the ball, and the finish. He landed into a cluster of people who carried him to a chair.
The finals: scores reset, one more dunk required, and Ben’s body had nothing left at load. One-foot: no chance. A test two-foot baby penultimate: no chance. The remaining option was off-vert, and his best off-vert dunk is the 180 Windmill. The decision process happened while so zoned out talking through pain management with Kilganon that neither of them heard Jordan Southerland announce on the mic that Ben had 50 seconds to decide whether to jump; Hunter relayed it. Ben gave Kilganon a thumbs up, realized he was standing mid-court without a basketball (“guys, how do I do a dunk without a ball?”), caught a beautifully broken-in FIBA ball thrown from the crowd by Paco, stood under the rim, summoned the remembered feeling of the dunk, and punched the 180 Windmill off-vert first try. The celebratory run after landing degraded immediately into a hobble. He won by roughly 15 points (79 to second place’s 64), meaning, as he cheerfully admits, a plain cuff Windmill would have won it too. Off-vert dunks, for the record, score generously in the current WDA rubric, a quirk we expect to see revised.
The aftermath, and Ben’s leg-extension readiness system
The recovery news is good: per Kilganon’s counsel, acute tendon blow-ups without tears heal fast (it’s the repeated blow-ups that produce tears and long timelines), and Ben confirmed no tear: walking pain-free within days, slow squats fine, isos resumed. The airport, where he dragged a wheel-less 60-pound bag for miles producing a continuous scraping sound he refused to be embarrassed by, was the worst part of the week.
And he shared the most quietly brilliant self-monitoring system this podcast has aired: he calibrates jump readiness against his single-leg leg-extension tolerance, because the tendon forces are comparable. Around 30-80 pounds: off-vert jumps are safe. 90-120: two-foot jumps. His full 180-pound single-leg extension: one-foot jumping is back on the table. No guesswork, no vibes, a measurable gate for each tier of return. Steal that.
Ben’s August assignment: FIBA 3×3 Edmonton, where his stated goal is, quote, to kick Finn’s butt. His documentary-style breakdown of the contest is on his YouTube and linked in the description. Follow him everywhere as Ben Bounces. Next episode, the greatest dunker of all time returns with a shoe. Peace.