This is a topic that comes up constantly in the dunk community, and I (Dylan Haugen) wanted to sit down with my co-host Hunter Castona and really break it down: should you measure the rims you dunk on? The short answer is yes, and in this episode we explain exactly why, share our personal experiences, and talk about what rim height actually means for your progress as a dunker.
My Experience with Measuring Rims
I didn’t start measuring rim heights until about two years ago, when I was around 15 years old, and I wasn’t doing it consistently until after Dunk Camp 2023. Before that, I was dunking at an indoor gym and had no idea the rims weren’t actually regulation. I thought I was throwing down on 10 feet every session, but when I finally measured, some of those rims were sitting at 9’10” or 9’10.5″. That was a wake-up call. It didn’t mean my dunks weren’t impressive, but it meant I wasn’t getting an accurate picture of where my vertical actually stood.
Hunter had a similar experience. He’d been dunking at various college campuses in Wisconsin and assumed they were all at 10 feet, but once he started measuring, he found the heights varied quite a bit. Some were right at 10, others were 9’9″ or even 10’2″. The inconsistency is way more common than people think, and it’s something that catches almost every dunker off guard when they first start paying attention to it.
Hunter’s Gym Situation: Why Rim Heights Change Daily
Hunter brought up something really interesting in this episode that a lot of dunkers can relate to. His gym has movable rims that are also adjustable — you can lower them and raise them with a ratchet system. The problem is that his gym hosts volleyball tournaments and pickleball every single day in addition to basketball, so those rims get moved constantly. Every time they’re repositioned, they end up at a slightly different height. No rim in that gym is ever the same height it was the day before. Hunter said half the time he doesn’t even know where the ratchet is, so he just dunks on whatever the rim happens to be at. It’s a situation that shows why measuring matters — without checking, you genuinely have no idea what you’re working with from one session to the next.
It’s Not Just About Height — Rim Stiffness Matters
One thing we really wanted to get into is that rim height alone doesn’t tell the full story. Rim stiffness is just as important, and it’s something a lot of dunkers overlook. I was dunking in Winona on a rim that measured 9’10”, but it was extremely floppy — if you hit the top of the rim with the ball, it would just bend down and the ball would fall in. Compare that to a stiff 9’10.5″ rim where you actually have to get up there and slam it through cleanly. Those are two very different levels of difficulty even though the heights are nearly the same.
The combination of height and stiffness is what really determines how hard a dunk is. A floppy 10-foot rim can actually be easier than a stiff 9’10” rim in some cases, because the give on the rim lets you get away with less elevation and less clean contact. So when you’re evaluating your dunks or comparing them to other people’s, you need to consider both factors together.
What’s the Cutoff for a “Legit” Dunk?
This is always a debate in the community, and my personal cutoff is 9’10” and a half on a stiff rim. Anything at that height where the rim doesn’t give, I consider legitimate. Obviously dunking on a full 10 feet is the gold standard, but the reality is that half an inch to an inch below regulation is extremely close and still requires serious athleticism. Hunter agreed, and he made the point that a lot of people don’t have access to higher rims — 9’10” and a half might be the tallest hoop they can get to. You can’t just tell someone to go dunk on something higher when their gym only has one set of rims and they’re not adjustable.
That said, anything significantly below that threshold, especially on a floppy rim, starts to get into territory where you need to be transparent about what you’re working with. It’s not about gatekeeping or shaming people — it’s about honesty. A dunk on a measured, stiff rim is always going to carry more weight than one where nobody knows the height or the rim was flexing down six inches.
The Community Problem: Posting Without Rim Heights
One thing I brought up in the episode is that when someone posts a dunk clip online and doesn’t include the rim height at all, I’m going to assume it’s a little low. That’s just the reality. If the rim was regulation or close to it, most people would mention it because it adds credibility to the clip. The absence of that information usually means something, and the dunk community has gotten pretty good at spotting rims that look off. We talked about how some people will say they just had a really good day or that they felt great during that session, when the truth might be that they tried a new gym and the rims were three inches lower than usual. Without measuring, you can’t even tell the difference sometimes.
Why Measuring Helps Your Training
The biggest practical reason to measure your rims is that it helps you actually gauge your progress. If you think you’re dunking great at one gym but struggling at another, the difference might just be that the first gym’s rims are two inches low. Without measuring, you’re basically guessing. When you know the exact height, you can look at your sessions and say with confidence whether you had a genuinely good day or if the rim was just giving you free inches. That data also helps with training decisions — understanding how high you’re actually getting tells you whether you need more strength work, more technique refinement, or if your programming is already moving you in the right direction.
How to Measure a Rim Properly
If you don’t know how to measure a rim, we recommend checking out @killerjunior23’s video on YouTube where he walks through the proper way to do it. The method involves using a measuring tape — you hook it to the rim, find the middle point, clamp it, let it hang straight without touching the ground, then unclamp and push it down to measure from the ground up. It’s straightforward once you know the technique, and it only takes about a minute. Hunter also mentioned that some people film themselves measuring from multiple angles to prove it’s accurate, which is a great extra step if you want full transparency.
Being honest with yourself and the community about your rim heights benefits everyone. A dunk on a measured 9’11” stiff rim is way more impressive than one on an unmeasured hoop that you’re just assuming is 10 feet. Watch the full episode above for the complete discussion on rim measuring. If you have topics you’d like us to cover, leave them in the comments. Subscribe to the Dunk Talk Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Instagram to stay updated.