Episode five of Dunk Talk was one of the heavier conversations I (Dylan Haugen) have had on this podcast. I sat down with Zach Velis, a nineteen year old dunker from northern Virginia who stands a little over six feet tall. Zach had been away from the dunk scene for a long time because of a knee issue that turned out to be far more serious than anyone initially thought. He and I came up in the same online dunking community and learned to jump off the same plant foot, so this conversation felt like catching up with an old friend while also unpacking a really important topic that does not get talked about enough: what happens when your body breaks down and nobody can figure out why.
How Zach Got Into Dunking
Zach grew up watching basketball casually, but it was low-rim dunking in his backyard and at the pool that truly sparked his passion. He started an Instagram page originally just as a personal archive to track every new trick he learned. That page ended up connecting him with other athletes and eventually led him to events like Dunk Camp. He hit his first dunk around fifteen and became consistent roughly a year later. We reminisced about those early days and how important it was to just keep jumping and filming yourself so you could actually see your progress. I was lucky enough to dunk a bit earlier, but our paths were running parallel the whole time and we were constantly comparing notes online.
Zach’s Prime Years and Dunk Camp 2022
By early 2022, Zach was in his prime. He landed his first between-the-legs dunk at sixteen on a nine foot nine rim and soon after did it off the dribble on a full ten feet. He had a memorable New Year’s Day session where he pulled off an off-the-wall eastbay and an eastbay off one foot. Over the following months he added an elbow hang, a 360 between the legs, and a 360 scoop to his arsenal, but his focus was on making staple dunks like the eastbay and windmill reliable on any good day rather than constantly chasing new tricks. That approach to building consistency before variety is something I think a lot of dunkers could learn from.
That summer, Dunk Camp was both a highlight and a turning point. Just two days before the event, Zach lightly jumped on an eight-foot rim and felt his right knee twist on what should have been a simple landing. He still went to camp, recorded a 35-inch vertical on the Vertec, which was down from his usual mid-thirties, and competed in the ten-foot contest. He landed a side tomahawk off a pass from Jordan Kilganon and a two-hand windmill. Afterward he traveled to Los Angeles, dunked with Elijah Bonds and on the Hoop Bus, but the pain in his knee never went away.
The Year-and-a-Half Nightmare of Misdiagnosis
The first doctors Zach saw told him he had patellar tendonitis. Like many of us who deal with jumper’s knee, he tried isometric exercises, slow strength work, and rest. He stopped jumping, did his rehab consistently, and assumed things would eventually improve. But every time he tried to return to the court, the sharp pain came right back. Over the next year and a half he cycled through multiple specialists and physical therapy programs while keeping his struggles largely private.
What made his situation so frustrating was that he could perform rehab exercises completely pain-free, but any attempt to actually jump produced a sharp bony pain that was clearly different from typical tendon issues. That disconnect messed with his head. Even minor discomfort can make you hold back on a jump, and when you are not sure if you are making things worse every time you try, the mental toll becomes enormous. The dunk community kept recommending isometrics and gradual loading, which works for most people with tendinopathy, but Zach’s knee simply did not respond to any of it.
The Real Diagnosis: Osgood-Schlatter Bone Fragment
Eventually a third doctor who works with professional teams reviewed Zach’s scans and spotted the actual problem. It was a bone fragment from childhood Osgood-Schlatter disease that was rubbing against his patellar tendon every time he jumped. This is something that most growing kids experience as a bump below the knee that eventually goes away, but in Zach’s case a piece of bone had broken off and was causing mechanical irritation that no amount of rehab was going to fix. A week before our conversation, he underwent surgery to remove the fragment. The procedure involved cutting through the tendon to extract it. When we spoke he could not bend his knee and was just beginning physical therapy, but the expectation was about six months of rehabilitation. He hoped to regain full mobility by the end of the summer and then slowly work back into basketball and dunking.
Lessons on Rim Height Honesty and Community
We also got into a broader discussion about honesty around rim heights, which is a topic that comes up constantly in the dunk community. Practicing on low rims is completely fine for progression as long as you are transparent about the height. Zach rounds his rim measurements to the nearest half inch and believes that kind of transparency helps everyone gauge where they actually stand. We compared our experiences seeing professional dunkers up close. At Dunk Camp 2023 I watched Jordan Southerland and Jordan Kilganon run through a gauntlet of elite dunks without missing, and Zach talked about dunking with Kilganon, Dan Gross, and Obi in North Carolina and realizing just how far he still had to go. Those humbling moments are valuable because they give you an honest picture of the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
What This Episode Meant to Me
Zach’s story is a reminder that injuries are not always what they seem. If your knee is not responding to standard rehab and the pain is sharp and bony rather than a dull tendon ache, push for more testing and do not accept the first diagnosis you get. Zach lost a year and a half because the real problem was hidden beneath what looked like a common overuse injury. At nineteen he still has plenty of time to rebuild, and I am genuinely looking forward to seeing him back in the gym when his knee is ready. This was one of the most important conversations we have had on the podcast because it deals with the part of dunking that nobody wants to talk about but everyone will eventually face in some form.