This is episode 70 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, and it’s the announcement: as of today’s Instagram post, I, Dylan Haugen, have officially signed with Shaquille O’Neal’s DunkMan League. This summer I’ll compete against 23 of the best dunkers in the world, 24 athletes total, for a $500,000 grand prize with more money beyond it, on TNT, with Shaq as commissioner. The signing makes me the youngest professional dunker in the league and, arguably, the world (Piotr in Poland, who is absolutely insane, is two days younger than me, so the title comes with an asterisk and a rival, which is how I like it).
Before anything else: thank you. The texts, the comments, the reshares since the post dropped have been overwhelming, and if you engaged at any level, I’m genuinely grateful. And thank you to the DunkMan team, Chuck, Shaq, all of them, for taking the risk on an 18-year-old early in his career. I intend to make that bet look smart.
From a mini hoop to a signing, in one paragraph
The journey, compressed for new readers: I started dunking at 11 or 12 on a mini hoop, not knowing professional dunking existed. The first pro I ever saw was Chris Staples, through Josh Horton’s videos, and I read him as a content creator, not a dunker. Jordan Kilganon was the first dunker whose dunks I actually studied, and he’s been a huge influence on my dunking and on me since. First dunk at 13, the slow drift away from basketball, and the sophomore-year decision to drop it entirely and go all-in on dunking, a choice I wasn’t sure about at the time and can now certify at 100 percent. I’ve referenced God’s plan skeptically my whole life; that decision was the first time I genuinely felt pulled in a direction I hadn’t chosen, and watched it work out beyond what I’d planned. Since then: youngest person to hit a Hide-and-Seek, among the youngest ever to hit an Underboth (17 years old, and definitively the youngest under six feet), and six wins in roughly eight contests, including two fly-outs to Maryland.
What the DunkMan League actually is
The lineage matters: there was Dunk League, there was Dunk King, there was last year’s DunkMan TV show (which I talked with them about; my age killed it, I wasn’t 18 yet). Then Chuck called me late last year about this, and everything aligned. What I know and can say: 24 signed athletes, $500,000 to the winner, a new scoring system unlike previous formats, with push-offs likely penalized or treated differently (a change this podcast has been campaigning for since episode 25), and names like Mac McClung in the field bringing mainstream attention.
The part that moves me as a fan rather than a competitor: when I truly entered this scene at 13 or 14, there was no career path in dunking. You dunked, you hustled shows, you hoped. Now there’s a league with a commissioner named Shaq, a TNT deal, and a half-million-dollar season. This is the infrastructure arriving, the thing every “how does dunking grow” episode on this show has been asking for, and it showed up at the exact moment in my career when I’m finally good enough to compete in it. A year ago this didn’t exist and I wasn’t ready. The timing is a gift.
Congratulations to Chuck (a history lesson)
When Chuck Millan called to congratulate me, I spent half the call congratulating him, because this league is the culmination of one of the great careers in dunking. Chuck founded Team Flight Brothers, the original dunk collective with T-Dub and that whole legendary era, and TFB was among the first sports channels, possibly the first, to get a YouTube ad partnership. He became the NBA’s dunk coach, the guy who preps Mac McClung for the contest every year. And now he has dissolved Team Flight Brothers and rolled its socials into the DunkMan League, which is why the league’s Instagram starts life with 1.2 million followers. He has put everything on this. Decades of building this sport are converging into one league, and being part of his payoff means almost as much as being part of mine.
How to put yourself in position for the next one
People will see this league and want in, so here’s my honest accounting of how an 18-year-old from Minnesota got a call, beyond getting lucky (which I did) and getting good (which is mandatory): I’ve been deliberately building for this since I was 11. Social media since middle school. Relationships built at Dunk Camp and through Kilganon, then made public and compounding through this very podcast, interviewing the top pros in the space. The long-form YouTube infrastructure (literally last episode). A personal-brand website almost nobody else has. None of this is accidental, and I’m planning a full content-strategy breakdown video soon. The formula for the next dunker: bet on yourself (fly to the sessions, enter the contests, go to camp), build the social infrastructure before you need it, leverage every relationship publicly, and be undeniable when the call comes.
What’s next
Coming on this channel: an interview with Chuck on his full career and everything we’re allowed to know about the league, plus interviews with as many of the 24 athletes as I can book (I know some well, like Cam Hazzard, and the league now connects me to the rest); tell me who you want first. And one more thing I told Chuck the day after signing: since the ink dried, my bounce has gone insane. I’m jumping higher than ever and hitting dunks I haven’t even posted yet. The buildup to this league is going to be documented everywhere, this channel for the talking, my main channel (Dylan Haugen, linked below) for the training and dunks.
Youngest pro in the league, $500,000 on the line, the best summer of my life ahead. Subscribe and come watch it happen. Thank you all, again, for everything. See you in the next one.