I (Dylan Haugen) started this podcast to share real dunking journeys, and it only felt right to begin with my own. In episode one of Dunk Talk, I walked through my entire path from barely touching the net to throwing down my first dunk at thirteen years old, standing five foot eight. This is the full story with all the details I lived through.
How a Michael Jordan Video Changed Everything
Growing up, I was a soccer and baseball kid. Basketball was barely on my radar. Then one random day I sat down at my computer and watched a video called something like “Michael Jordan’s top 50 plays of all time.” That single video completely rewired my brain. Watching him soar through the air made me want to do the same thing immediately. I went outside to our driveway hoop, lowered it all the way down to about seven and a half feet, grabbed a small ball, and just started trying to recreate what I had seen. I had no idea that professional dunkers even existed at that point. I was just a kid pretending to be Michael Jordan on a lowered rim, and I was having the time of my life.
Low Rim Sessions Built My Entire Foundation
Those low rim sessions became my daily routine. I was probably around eleven years old when I started, somewhere around fourth grade. At the time, my season high in basketball was eight points, and even that felt like an accomplishment. But something interesting happened between fourth and fifth grade. I spent the entire summer just dunking on seven and a half feet, doing windmills and between the legs with a small ball. Everything looked awkward and rough, but I did not care. By fifth grade, I went from being one of the worst players on my team to arguably the best. The only thing I had really done differently was low rim dunking. I was not doing extra dribbling drills or shooting workouts. It was purely the athleticism and coordination I built from all those hours on a lowered hoop.
Backboard, Rim, and the Seventh Grade Breakthrough
The milestones came slowly and then all at once. By the summer going into seventh grade, I touched the padding on the backboard for the first time and was fired up because basically nobody else in my grade could do that. During seventh grade I went through a huge athleticism change, probably just puberty kicking in, and suddenly the low rim dunks that used to look awkward started looking legitimate. I could do actual windmills and between the legs dunks on seven and a half feet, and it did not look like I was just going through the motions anymore.
Then came the moment I still remember vividly. We were at practice, my dad was an assistant coach for my seventh grade team, and during a water break I went up to touch the rim. I felt my fingers wrap around it. I do not think anyone else even saw it. I turned to my dad and said watch this, went up again, and could not get it. It actually took me about two weeks to touch the rim consistently after that first time, which frustrated me then but looking back is hilarious. These days, if I can get a new dunk consistent in two weeks, I consider that incredibly fast.
Jordan Kilganon Changed the Way I Saw Dunking
Around the time I started touching the rim, I began talking to Jordan Kilganon. If you do not know who he is, he is widely considered one of the greatest dunkers of all time. The fact that he took time to help me as a kid just getting started meant the world. He sent me a screenshot of my approach path and drew a corrected line over it showing what I should change. I used that single screenshot countless times. It helped me go from barely dunking on nine foot six to doing it consistently. Beyond technique, scrolling through his Instagram and seeing all the creative dunks he was doing made me fall in love with dunking as an art form. Before that, I just wanted to dunk in basketball games. After discovering Kilganon, I wanted to learn every trick dunk I could find.
The Summer Everything Came Together
The summer between seventh and eighth grade was when I went all in. I was jumping every single day for at least one hour, sometimes up to four hours. A lot of that time was spent on low rims, but I also started doing more and more attempts on ten feet even when I was nowhere close. I could see a dunk and go recreate it on a low rim almost immediately. I did a 360 between the legs on seven and a half, I hit a lost and found, and I built a massive library of dunks. That entire skill base came from the thousands of reps I put in at twelve and thirteen years old, and it still pays off today because any dunk I see, I can basically go outside and replicate it.
Getting My First Dunk at The Lab
I set a goal to dunk before I turned fourteen in October. Through that whole summer, I was close but never quite there. I remember one specific day outside on my home court where I missed about twenty dunks that were all incredibly close. Those near misses made me stop doing low rim sessions because I wanted to save every ounce of energy for ten foot attempts. Then one day at a gym we call The Lab, the one with the red court if you have seen my videos, I told my dad before leaving the house that I was going to dunk that day. He gave me the yeah sure you are look.
Honestly, I was not that close at first. But then this guy named Adam Anderson, who I had seen dunking on the other side of the gym, walked over and asked if I wanted him to throw me some lobs. I cannot explain how much that meant to me. Having a complete stranger come up and offer to help was everything. His lobs were perfect, and about four or five attempts in, I threw down my first real dunk. I was thirteen years old, five foot eight, and it was September of 2021, right before my fourteenth birthday.
I still talk to Adam today. A couple months before recording this episode, I actually saw him at the gym and hit a double up eastbay over him, which is where you hold the ball on top of someone’s head, jump over them, and put it between your legs. That full circle moment was something I never could have imagined when he was just throwing me lobs as a kid who could barely get the ball over the rim.
The Takeaway for Anyone Chasing Their First Dunk
If you are at a gym and you see someone trying to dunk who looks close, ask if you can throw them lobs. It might seem like a small thing, but it could literally make their entire year the way it made mine. After that first dunk, progress got harder for a while. I got a few more tip-ins over the rest of the year but then dealt with a knee injury involving my MCL, PCL, and meniscus area. That is a story for another episode, but the point of this one is simple: low rim work, patience, and putting yourself out there can take you from not being able to touch the net to dunking on a regulation hoop. I am living proof of that.