This is episode 22 of the Dunk Talk Podcast and the first time I’ve had two returning guests on the same call. I’m Dylan Haugen, joined by my co-host Hunter Castona, and our guests are Donovan Hawkins and Josh Ruble, both back for round two after recent solo episodes. The reason we got them together: Donovan has had one of the wildest three-month runs in the modern dunk era: a 50-inch test on the My Jump 2 app earlier today, a K54 contest in Paris, a FIBA 3×3 in Edmonton against Finn Addy and Brandon Ruffin, and finishing the Black Band Gauntlet. Josh is here because they just had a session together in Missouri and Josh is the one with the LA gym story.
Today, four hours ago: a 0.968 flight time on My Jump 2
Donovan, Josh, and Billy from Dunkademics had a session four hours before this recording. Donovan went into the session feeling great. About six warmup jumps in, Josh pulled out the My Jump 2 app (the same one Isaiah Rivera and John Evans use for vertical estimation), set the iPhone to 240 frames per second, and recorded Donovan’s height check. They confirmed the slow-mo at 160fps for the actual measurement frame.
For reference: when Isaiah Rivera officially tested his 50-inch vertical on a Vertec, his My Jump 2 flight time was 0.964 seconds. Donovan’s test today read 0.968 seconds. John Evans reviewed the footage and confirmed the jump was at least 50 inches. Donovan still needs to do it on a real Vertec to make it official, but the math says 50+ on a documented height check. He’s 21 years old. He’s 6’3.5”. He came up entirely through hockey before this.
His standing reach is 81.5 inches, which means he needs to touch 12’3.5” on a Vertec to officially test 50. Hunter and I both watched him clear a 12’ ball at the Wisconsin Dunk Camp show by roughly an inch on a tired day. The 50 is going to happen.
K54 in Paris: a flight cancellation, a Newt Williams matchup, and second place
The first big event in Donovan’s summer was K54 in Paris. He got the invite via Kador Zani after multiple people in the dunk community put his name forward. Travel was a disaster: original flight got delayed, then cancelled, then he had to overnight in Dallas, then he landed in Paris six hours before the contest started.
The field at K54 was Donovan, Newt Williams, Joel Henry, and Pedor Grabinsky (the Polish dunker). Three dunks each.
- Dunk 1: Between-the-legs self-bounce into Underboth. Made first try.
- Dunk 2: 360 Windmill. Made.
- Dunk 3: Off-the-backboard Underboth. Missed.
Donovan was winning after the first two dunks. The off-the-backboard Underboth attempt was a stretch dunk that he wasn’t consistent on at the time. Donovan said on the episode he wishes he’d gone with something he knew he could land. He took second place to Newt Williams. He calls K54 the contest that taught him how to think about three-dunk pacing for the rest of the summer.
FIBA 3×3 Edmonton: 4 of 5 first-try, $4K prize money
The second big event was the FIBA 3×3 Edmonton contest. Donovan competed against Finn Addy (who flew up from Ontario the day before) and Brandon Ruffin. The field, the building, and the energy all hit. Donovan calls it one of his favorite events ever, not just for the dunking but for the production.
The format gave each dunker five dunks. Donovan hit four of them first try. The one miss was salvageable enough that the overall score stayed clean. He took first. Prize money was around $4,000 (standard for a FIBA 3×3 contest). It was a paid contest win for someone who’d been a working-pro dunker for less than a year.
Josh’s LA session at 9’9” (and meeting T-Jackson and Young Hollywood)
Around the same window, Josh had a family reunion in Orange County and asked Billy at Dunkademics if he could come dunk at the 9’9” rim Billy keeps for low-rim sessions. Billy said yes. Josh has called that session his best session ever (with the caveat that 9’9” is meaningfully below regulation):
- Behind-the-back third try.
- Left-hand Eastbay second try.
- Right-hand Eastbay first try.
- Dubble Up over his brother where Josh’s head looks like Donovan’s at the rim (it’s a push-off, but Josh still counts it).
The session also had two cameo appearances. T-Jackson (the 5’4” dunker who’s been blowing up on Instagram) walked in casually 45 minutes in and Dubble Up’d Josh’s brother. That clip got several million views and Josh’s brother is still bitter about not getting tagged. Then Young Hollywood (the old-school legend) walked in as Josh was finishing. Josh didn’t dunk with him but got a picture.
Josh’s overall session was 1.5 hours of jumping, including 10 sets of Windmills to failure. He almost broke his ankle landing on a ball at one point. The Instagram reel from that session is roughly a minute long, which is wild on Instagram.
Donovan and Josh’s second Missouri session
After K54 in Paris, Donovan flew to Missouri for a second session with Josh. Hunter was already on his way back from the first Donovan-Josh-Hunter Missouri session a couple of weeks before. This was a smaller, quieter session (about six people in the gym, no spectators). Josh wasn’t at his peak for the day but still landed a left-hand Eastbay and a behind-the-back, both of which he was happy with. Donovan calls it a “solid W session.” They got the work in, kept it fun, and avoided burning out.
Finishing the Black Band Gauntlet on a random Saturday
The most surreal moment of Donovan’s summer was finishing the WDA Black Band Gauntlet about two weeks after Edmonton. The Gauntlet is the highest-tier dunk-band test in the system: five dunks (360 Eastbay, Eastbay off the backboard, 360 behind-the-back, Scorpion, Underboth) that you have to land in a single session.
Donovan wasn’t planning to do the Gauntlet. He had a normal session scheduled with friends and they were going to film a “name a dunk” Chris Staples-style video where they wrote dunks on slips of paper, drew them at random, and tried to land them. Three dunks into the session, Donovan looked up and realized he’d already landed three of the five Gauntlet dunks. He called Adam Dunks for the official list (couldn’t find it on his phone), Adam answered right away, sent it over, and Donovan finished the remaining dunks across the rest of the session.
That made Donovan the fifth or sixth dunker ever to officially clear the Black Band Gauntlet. Hunter and I both said on the episode that the Gauntlet feels like it should be Donovan’s baseline session at this point, not a milestone. He could probably hit it every single Saturday if he set out to. (Hunter Castona is currently working toward Blue Band; Black is the level above.)
Hunter’s prediction from the Utah Dunk Camp
Hunter flagged a moment from Wisconsin Dunk Camp earlier this summer that I want to put in writing. Donovan walked up to Hunter mid-session and said “you’re going to be competing against me at the FIBA 3×3 this summer.” Then immediately turned around and hit an Underboth. About five seconds elapsed between the prediction and the dunk. Hunter laughed and committed to entering. He didn’t end up making it to FIBA 3×3 because his Achilles flared up at the Thursday show. The two of them are setting up a head-to-head FIBA-style contest later in the year regardless.
Donovan’s 12-month outlook
The summer set up the next 12 months pretty clearly:
- Verified 50″ on a Vertec. The My Jump 2 test today is unofficial. Donovan wants the Vertec stamp.
- More FIBA 3×3 contests. He’s now on the FIBA invite list permanently and is targeting two or three per year.
- DunkMan League. Donovan is going to be one of the 24 signed athletes in Shaq’s DunkMan League this summer (along with me and Cam Hazzard). The level of competition will be a step up from anything either of us has been in before.
- The Underboth off the backboard. Donovan was close at K54. He’s been hitting variations of it in casual sessions. By the end of 2024 he expects it to be a contest-ready dunk.
Where to find Donovan and Josh
Donovan is “donovanhawkins_37” on Instagram. Josh is “josh.dunks” on Instagram and YouTube. Go follow both. The session content from this summer will be rolling out on Billy’s Dunkademics channel and on Donovan’s feed over the next few weeks.
Next episode is my own retrospective on getting from a 37.5″ vertical to 41.5″ in a year. After that, the Jason JaySmoove McCoy interview. Minnesota Dunk Squad sessions are weekly through fall. Comment with any dunker you want Hunter and me to interview next.