I dunked once in my life but no one believes me🏀

Someone call Hoopmixtape over here.

I’ve been playing ball since I was four years old. I was really stubborn about the sport too. I used to try scoring a regulation size basketball, on a 10-foot rim in the middle of a street park in Hong Kong, completely ignoring my physical capabilities. I mean, the ball was half my size. I barely had the strength to throw it up but I never wanted to use a “kid’s ball” or a shorter rim either. Yeah, I know, if my kids get those stubborn genes, I’m gonna be screwed.

Eventually my first bucket came but I mean y’all came here for a dunking story not a four year old monologue. Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with clout in basketball, dunking is probably the highest you can get. I mean sure it’s cool to be like Steph from the three-point line but punching the ball down the rim electrifies the crowd on a whole other level.

I first grabbed rim in the ninth grade. It was during gym class and we were doing laps around the basketball court. I saw all the guys going to do it as we lapped around the court and gave it a try myself. To my surprise, I got it on the first try. A year later and I was playing for both my high school team and a club team. That meant that half my life was spent at practice.

And it didn’t matter where you played, if you had a bunch of teenage boys together on a court after practice, they were bound to start showing off. Now some of us were actually dunking and others were close but the culture was typically the same. After practice, everyone was trying to show off their bounce. “Nothing Was The Same” blasting on the speakers and a bunch of shirtless dudes throwing themselves alley-oops to try and get as high up as possible.

Looking back at it, I was really persistent about dunking. I bought these jump programs and tried to follow their nutrition guides and exercise/ jumping mechanic routines that promised you a 50” vertical or your money back. I never got my money back.

To be fair, I don’t really know if I gave it all my effort so I can’t be too judgmental. But I remembered the program highly emphasizing proper jump mechanics. Something about making sure that your last two steps were to be as quick as possible so that it propels you up rather than forward.

So one time, I’m at my club team’s facility and I noticed a guy there, probably about a year or two older than me, continually trying to dunk over and over. I mean he could squeeze it in, but he was tryna get that Russell Westbrook power-punch down. Eventually, we started taking turns trying to dunk on the same rim. Each one of us going back and forth and watching how the other person does. I was getting rim stuffed almost every attempt. I’d switch up my methods, sometimes taking off one foot, sometimes two, sometimes changing my stride length, etc.

Then, on one attempt, I unnaturally sped my steps, in a mix of what the jump program said and honestly, just pure mistake. But somehow, I got high enough and tilted my body to give me just enough to squeeze the ball down the rim.

Prior to this, I’d hoped that this moment would be in front of friends, with the music blasting and landing to all these people dabbing me up and yelling “LET’S GO”.

But instead, I’m left with only this story to tell and only one person to witness one of my proudest personal accomplishments in my basketball career.