At The Dunk Camp in Utah this year, two of the best 18-year-old dunkers in the world ended up in the same gym for the first time. One is me, Dylan Haugen, out of America. The other is Piotr Zawiślak, a professional dunker from Poland who does things off both legs that most people never land in their lives. We are the same age, our birthdays are two days apart, and until this week we had only known each other through Instagram.
I have been telling people about Piotr for about a year. The way I describe watching him is simple.
“if you guys know the Rocky movie where there’s that really insane Russian dude… he comes and just beats the crap out of Rocky. That’s how I always think about this guy.”
Dylan Haugen
The Sport Is Going Global
This is the part of dunking that gets me excited. I found Piotr on Instagram when he was 17, throwing 360s off both legs from the other side of the planet. I compete in American contests and I am in DunkMan, Shaq’s league, which is an American thing that keeps expanding. Piotr is in Poland doing contests all over Europe and the world. Different lanes, different styles, same sport at the highest level.
“So super cool to always connect with people, who’s just different, man. The life, the things you do are super cool.”
Dylan Haugen
When two dunkers from completely different backgrounds meet and immediately understand each other, that is the community working the way it should. Piotr told me the week was one of the best of his life, that Jordan was hyping him up and the whole room was going crazy after his dunks. He also got to session with Nathan “Hoopin Nate” Kenney and the rest of the crew.
“It was crazy, man. That was one of the best weeks of my life.”
Piotr Zawiślak
Why This Matters for Dunking
Dunking is a young, global sport, and moments like this are how it grows. A kid in Poland and a kid in Minnesota both fall in love with the same thing, put in the same work, and eventually end up in the same gym pushing each other higher. That is worth documenting. Piotr wrote about the week from his side in his first post on his new site, and I wrote about finally meeting him in my own recap of the meeting.
Here is the thing that still surprises people: Piotr is one of the best in the world and a lot of American dunk fans have never heard his name. We got into why that gap exists, and how it gets fixed, in the Dunker Spotlight feature on him. And if you are curious how we turned this single interview into a real online presence for him, that is laid out in the breakdown of building his site from one clip.
Watch the full conversation at the top. Two of the best 18-year-olds on earth, one from America and one from Poland, finally in the same room. That is what this sport is about.