This is episode 50 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, the milestone episode, and we spent it doing the thing this show was built for: watching the NBA dunk contest back with Donovan Hawkins and grading it with pro-dunker eyes. I’m Dylan Haugen, with Hunter Castona. The verdict up front, because it surprised people: we liked this contest. Best one in years. And Mac McClung deserved the win. The interesting parts are in the details the broadcast didn’t explain. (Watch this one on YouTube rather than audio; we react to the footage throughout.)
The field, dunk by dunk
Stephon Castle opened with a punched left-right 360 Windmill, basic by our standards but executed with real power, and the right kind of opener. His crown-jewel moment came later: a 360 reverse behind-the-back, first try, walked into casually, the best non-double-up dunk of the entire contest. (It also triggered a five-minute argument between me and Donovan about whether the reverse finish is harder than the standard one and whether Isaiah hits the lefty version in warmups. The debate remains unsettled and I remain correct.) His misses earlier weren’t the passer’s fault either, and we want this on the record: Chuck Millan threw four perfect lobs and got laughed at by NBA players for one bad one, when the footage clearly shows Castle’s timing missing, not Chuck’s placement.
Matas Buzelis was the flop I predicted out loud before the contest, and Donovan brought actual insider knowledge to explain why: in the entire week leading up, Buzelis had a total of maybe four or five max-effort jump sessions. You can see it in his attempts; the technique exists and the legs don’t. NBA players treating the contest as an afterthought is a recurring theme, and it shows in exactly this way.
Andre Jackson Jr. hurt the most because the talent was real: a 6’6” one-footer who could threaten a free-throw-line dunk, instead grinding through two-foot attempts that aren’t his game (a reverse 360 Windmill, a missed lob one-hander) and then bailing into something so safe it was barely a Windmill. Wrong bag, wrong plan.
Mac McClung ran the strategy Donovan literally described on this podcast months ago: open with your best. The car dunk to start was, in our shared opinion, the best car dunk in contest history, an honest 50 even with the toe grazing the hood, especially in a world that gave Blake Griffin a 50 for clearing a hood. The hoverboard Armageddon caught “it’s just a variation” criticism that we reject wholesale: a variation is a new dunk, the same way a two-hand Windmill isn’t disqualified because Windmills exist, and Donovan, who has done every double-up variation imaginable, testified that the Armageddon is genuinely hard. The Puma platform rim-tap finale was the one we’d have swapped (fine dunk, wrong slot; we both guessed he’d close with a Honey Dip variation), and the 180 two-hander was a 49 that got a 50. Every dunk: first try. That’s the part casuals undervalue and pros worship.
The 40-point floor is a scandal
The structural absurdity we can’t stop laughing about: NBA judges never score below 40, so Buzelis missed every attempt and received a 40. Translate the NBA’s 40-50 band onto an honest 0-10 scale and that’s an 8 for a miss. At one point the broadcast displayed that Mac needed a 38.9 to advance, a number that is literally impossible to score under the de facto floor; he could have airballed and moved on. It’s the same compressed-range disease we diagnosed in the scoring-system episodes, at the highest-budget contest on earth. Use the whole scale or the scores mean nothing.
The push-off awakening (conveniently timed)
The sociology of this contest fascinated us more than the dunks. For the first time, we watched non-dunkers, hundreds of them, in the replies of mainstream posts, correctly identifying Mac’s double-ups as push-offs. Knowledge we’ve been broadcasting for years finally went mainstream… at the precise moment the public wanted a reason to dock the three-time champion. Donovan’s read on the arc is right: Mac was the beloved underdog for two wins, and the same crowd that hyped him now wants him beaten, because audiences love an upset but resent a dynasty. Our position is the consistent one: double-ups are real, skilled, crowd-pleasing dunks that are systematically overscored, and that was true when everyone cheered them too. Mac’s one strategic error wasn’t doing double-ups; it was doing only double-ups. Swap the platform dunk for one off-dribble piece (a Scorpion variation, an Underboth attempt) and the criticism evaporates while the trophy stays.
The Mac McClung injustice
The episode ended on the conversation every dunker has: how is this man not in the NBA? G League MVP-level production averaging 30, three straight dunk contest wins generating the only All-Star Saturday buzz the league gets, elite movement and handle, and five career NBA games. The answer we got from a former D1 player friend is the cold one: a 6’2” guard without elite NBA passing or defense doesn’t fit the modern roster, full stop, and the counterexamples getting minutes have other things going on. Donovan’s summary stands: if Mac were 6’6” he’d simply be in the league. Instead he’s the best dunker the NBA has, employed by it only one Saturday a year.
Episode 50 in the books. Thank you all for getting this show to a number we genuinely didn’t plan for. Donovan is “donovanhawkins_37” on Instagram. Next episode is a big personal one: how I hit an Underboth at 5’11” and 17 years old. Comment with your scores for Mac’s four dunks, using the whole scale, cowards.