The dunk is basketball’s most lionized play. The most iconic ones are canonized, referenced fondly and usually, debated for his or her deserves and significance. The sport’s language has created so many names for it: jam, yam, slam, poster, stuff, hammer. It’s a singular membership that solely few on this world can be part of. It’s marvelous.
And it hurts like hell.
“Can you think of any other concept where your hand swings at something metal?” 11-year NBA veteran Austin Rivers asks. “It’ll probably hurt, yeah?”
When requested, players catalog the ache dunking has prompted: damaged nails; bent fingers; latest bruises; lasting scars; midair collisions; twisted necks; harmful landings. Injuries that price them video games and even seasons.
Derrick Jones Jr., a former NBA All-Star Weekend dunk contest winner now with the Dallas Mavericks, factors out two particular marks on his left wrist. Larry Nance Jr., one other excessive flier in his ninth NBA season and third with the New Orleans Pelicans, remembers childhood recollections of his father’s scarred arms from a 14-year NBA profession that included profitable the first-ever dunk contest in 1984. Dallas’ Josh Green remembers one pregame dunk that set his nerves afire.
“I remember thinking, ‘Why would I do this before a game,’” the 23-year-old Green says.
And but nonetheless they dunk.
In the fashionable NBA, the dunk’s frequency has been growing, going from 8,254 in the 2002-03 common season to 11,664 final yr. The rise is usually on account of the 3-point revolution and the elevated spacing and cleaner driving lanes that include it. But the league additionally has taller, extra explosive athletes getting into yearly. With them come much more spectacular aerial feats, ones that enrapture followers and wow even the players who witness them.
What players consider the dunk, and the agony that may include it, is ever altering. This isn’t some new development. It’s simply that the dunk, for all its attract and mystique, is the most visceral mark of a participant’s maturation.
Basketball’s most unique membership, one solely entered 10 ft in the air, isn’t one which players can — or all the time need to — stay in without end.
Dennis Smith Jr., now a member of the Brooklyn Nets, had a 48-inch vertical as a prospect, however says now his struggles with touchdown affected his taking pictures kind. (Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE through Getty Images)
When younger basketball players first begin dunking, they by no means need to cease.
“It makes you the guy,” Dennis Smith Jr. says.
Smith’s first in-game dunk was an off-the-backboard slam in a state title recreation when he was 13. His workforce was up massive and his teammates had been displaying off. “Now it’s my turn,” the 26-year-old Brooklyn Nets guard remembers pondering. “I got one.” An in-game dunk is a standing image he has by no means forgotten.
Willie Green, now the head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans after a 12-year NBA profession, was instructed as a young person that toe raises would assist him attain above the rim. Every morning in the bathe, he counted to 300 — rising onto the balls of his ft with every quantity till this membership lastly let him in.
“If you could dunk, people looked up to you, they glorified you,” Green says. “You felt like you got over a big hurdle in basketball. It was a huge step in basketball when I was able to dunk.”
Every participant requested remembers how previous they had been once they first began. “You’re young, you’re bouncy,” Markieff Morris, 34, says. “You dunked so you could talk your s—.” It was the very first thing kids like him did getting into the fitness center, the final earlier than they left.
“When you’re first dunking, your fingers are full of blood because of the (contact),” Philadelphia 76ers ahead Nicolas Batum remembers. “But you get used to it. You have so much joy of dunking. You’re one of the few people in the world that can.”
Once players begin dunking in video games, it turns into much more addicting. “When you try to dunk on someone, you’re hyped up, you’re amped up,” the New York Knicks’ Donte DiVincenzo says. “You don’t feel any of that s—.” It’s the identical as any adrenaline excessive. “It feels like energy,” 21-year-old Mavericks guard Jaden Hardy says. As the crowds develop larger and the reactions reverberate louder, it’s even higher.
Marques Johnson, a five-time NBA All-Star who retired in 1990, remembers one slam he had at age 15 in a summer time league over a participant who had simply been drafted to the NBA. To dunk on him, to knock him to the floor, proved one thing.
“As a young player, if you can hang with guys on the next level,” he says, “it becomes that validation that you belong.”
Johnson, at present the Milwaukee Bucks’ tv analyst, performed collegiately for UCLA, the place he was named the Naismith College Player of the Year in 1977, the first season the dunk was re-legalized in faculty basketball. “I really believe it’s a big reason why I won,” he says. “People ain’t seen a dunk in college basketball in 10 years.” Johnson, a hyperathletic 6-foot-7 ahead, took up residence above the rim.
Once, he missed two weeks with a knee sprain after dunking on a teammate in apply and touchdown onerous. As he lay on the floor in ache, he nonetheless remembers what his first query was.
“Did the dunk go in?”
“Yeah,” he was instructed. “You dunked on him.”
Marques Johnson, proven right here with the Bucks, believes dunking was a giant purpose he was the Naismith Player of the Year in 1977. (Heinz Kluetmeier / Sports Illustrated through Getty Images)
Last season, Christian Wood rebounded his personal miss and discovered an empty path to the rim. He dribbled as soon as, planted each ft, hurled the ball by way of the rim — and then clutched his left hand as he ran again down the courtroom.
Wood, who signed with the Los Angeles Lakers this summer time after his one season with the Mavericks, completed the recreation however missed the subsequent eight with a damaged thumb. “I went for a tomahawk (dunk), trying to look flashy for some reason, and hit my thumb again,” he says. He had already injured it, he says, however that’s the second when he knew he “had really hurt it.”
As youngsters age into veterans, their relationships towards dunking usually change. “To really dunk consistently in the NBA, you gotta be a freak athlete.” Rivers says. For those that aren’t, dunking turns into extra akin to a software than a feat.
“S—, those things are really adding up,” the 26-year-old DiVincenzo says. “A lot of the younger guys want to dunk every single time. I am not like that anymore.”
DiVincenzo nonetheless dunks — he had 9 final yr with the Golden State Warriors — however prefers layups when potential. It isn’t all the time potential, although. “Sometimes, (a dunk) is the only way to draw fouls,” he says.
When Willie Green neared the finish of his profession, he remembers hating when defenders pressured him into it.
“They’re chasing you down hard on a fast break, and you want to lay it up, but you know if you lay it up, they’re going to block it,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Man. You made me dunk that.’”
Green was a two-foot dunker, which meant accelerating into the air was onerous on his knees, particularly the left one, which was surgically repaired in 2005. “That force, that gravity, compounded with coming down,” he says. “It takes a toll on you.”
Smith, the ninth choose in the 2017 draft, entered the league with a record-tying 48-inch vertical — and with a harmful behavior of coming down on one leg. While recovering from knee surgical procedure, he realized to land on each of them. “I don’t even think about it now,” he says. But he nonetheless does thoracic remedy to deal with scar tissues in his wrist from his childhood dunks, which he believes has had an impact on his taking pictures kind.
The league’s freak athletes, the ones Rivers referenced, do have totally different experiences. Nance Jr., who remembers his father’s forearm scars, has none of his personal. His palms are giant sufficient to engulf the ball fairly than pinning it in opposition to his wrist. “I never really learned how to cup it like everybody else,” Nance says. “I genuinely don’t believe I could do it if I tried.” He drops the ball by way of the rim fairly than counting on inertia.
“Not really,” he says when requested whether or not it hurts. “Unless I miss.”
Players like him nonetheless expertise ache from the midair collisions and the misses: when the basketball hits the cylinder’s rear and sends shock waves by way of their arms; when an opponent’s determined swipes hit flesh and nerve; when the crash of our bodies sends theirs sprawling to the ground.
Anthony Edwards, one other alien athlete, doesn’t even consult with what he does as dunking. “I don’t really dunk the ball,” he says. “I just put it in there the majority of the time.” Earlier this month, although, Edwards elevated over the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Jaylin Williams, nicked him on the shoulder and got here crashing again down.
Though Edwards solely missed two video games with a hip harm, the Timberwolves’ rising star admitted he was “scared” and “nervous” in his first recreation upon returning. And even when missed dunks don’t injure him, there’s nonetheless satisfaction.
As Edwards stated of them final season: “Those hurt my soul.”
Anthony Edwards, proven right here after a dunk in final season’s Play-In Tournament, was not too long ago injured on a dunk try in opposition to Oklahoma City. (Adam Pantozzi / NBAE through Getty Images)
Kyrie Irving had stolen the ball and was alone at the basket in a December recreation when he rose as much as dunk in entrance of his personal bench. His Dallas teammates had already risen as much as have fun — till they couldn’t.
“I mistimed it,” he says. “My momentum wasn’t there.” The ball grazed the entrance of the rim and fell out.
The 31-year-old Irving is thought for each type of spotlight besides dunking, of which he has solely 25 in his 11-year profession. But a flubbed dunk is embarrassing even for a participant like him.
“You just feel bad!” he says. “We’re the best athletes in the world. I should be able to get up there once in a while.”
Later that quarter, the 6-foot-2 Irving had one other likelihood at a wide-open quick break, at redemption. This time, he made certain to show he might nonetheless do it.
“I had to double pump,” he says, laughing now. “I had to get up there, bro. I couldn’t come in the locker room to my teammates, coaching staff, upper management. They would’ve been on my head.”
Still, as players develop nearer to retirement, they usually cling up their dunking careers first.
Rivers, who stays a free agent after spending his eleventh season with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2022-23, not too long ago retired from dunking. “I just prefer laying the ball up,” he stated final yr. “A dunk takes a lot out of me.” It was the onerous landings that finally acquired him to cease, however he believes he turned a greater finisher as soon as he made the determination.
It’s simpler for veterans who by no means wanted to play above the rim. Like, say, Stephen Curry, who appears amused he was requested about one thing he hasn’t achieved in a recreation since 2018.
“I had no problem letting that part of myself go,” the 6-foot-3 Curry says. “I very easily moved on to the next chapter of my career.”
Batum, a 35-year-old with 367 profession dunks, additionally swore off contested dunks earlier than final season. “My body told me,” he stated. “It said, ‘No more, bro.’” Now he solely dunks, gently with two palms, when he is aware of he’s alone at the rim.
“When you hit 32, the game isn’t about dunking anymore,” says Morris, now in his thirteenth NBA season. “It’s about longevity and still being able to play at a high level.”
Caron Butler needs he had realized that sooner. When he was youthful, Butler, who had two All-Star appearances earlier than retiring to change into a Miami Heat assistant coach, practiced as onerous as he performed.
“I overemphasized the two points I was getting to prove a point or show off my God-given ability,” he says. “It would have given me more longevity.”
Butler doesn’t have any regrets. But he thinks about the dunk in a different way now.
“It’s just two points.”
Caron Butler, proven right here leaping between two Cavaliers throughout the 2008 NBA playoffs, stated his angle towards dunking modified as he acquired older. “It’s just two points,” he says. (Ned Dishman / NBAE through Getty Images)
It’s simply two factors.
“I’m listening to an old man talk,” Butler says. “That’s what 13-year-old Caron Butler would say. He would say, ‘I’m listening to a very old man talk about dunking.’”
He’s not the solely retired participant who sees the irony. Green thinks his youthful self, the one who counted his toe raises in the bathe, would really feel equally
“Thirteen-year-old me would really be disgusted right now,” he says.
But Green did dunk once more earlier in 2023, a windmill slam in a January apply that had his players hollering in amazement. “They always tell me I can’t dunk,” he says. “I wanted to show them I had a little juice.” Green, the league’s fifth-youngest head coach, says that one in every of his teaching qualities is his relatability.
“When you’re asking high level professional athletes to do something, it helps for them to know that you’ve done it,” he says. “And it helps to know when they look at you that it looks like you still can do it.”
For others, it’s one thing that hearkens again to the previous: to the adrenaline rush they first felt, to the validation it gave when their NBA careers had been nonetheless goals. Klay Thompson, maybe this sport’s second-best shooter ever behind Curry, his Warriors teammate, says one in every of the finest moments of his profession was a dunk. After lacking two consecutive seasons with main surgical procedures, in his first recreation again, he drove to the rim and slammed one. Thompson knew in that second, he says, that the Warriors might nonetheless win one other championship — and later that season, they did.
The finish results of Klay Thompson’s dunk by way of a number of Cavaliers in his first recreation again from ACL and Achilles accidents. (Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images)
Thompson used to walk onto the courtroom and dunk as quickly as his footwear had been on. “Now, I need a good hour to get the gears greased and the motor working,” he says. As his physique has modified, so too has his appreciation for what dunking means.
“It’s always an amazing feeling hanging on the rim that you can (forget) most people can’t do it,” he says. “I no longer take it for granted.”
It’s simply two factors for these membership members, sure, nevertheless it’s greater than that. For Johnson, the former Naismith College Player of the Year, dunking nonetheless means one thing particular. Johnson turns 68 in February, and he plans to proceed his private custom that started when he was 55: dunking on his birthday.
It’s motivation, Johnson explains, to remain in form, which was impressed by his son, Josiah, who movies it yearly. It began turning into tougher when Marques turned 60. “The first two attempts, I’m barely getting above the rim,” he says. It’s tougher to palm the ball as his palms lose energy, and it often takes till the fifth or sixth strive earlier than he succeeds.
Johnson, who had hip surgical procedure this summer time, doesn’t know if he’ll succeed subsequent yr. After all, he solely makes an attempt to dunk on his birthday, by no means in-between. “I know, eventually, I’m not going to be able to do it,” he says. But his restoration has gone effectively, and he feels good he’ll dunk as soon as extra subsequent February.
He nonetheless remembers it, misses it.
“I remember them vividly: the excitement, the adrenaline rushing through your body,” he says. “So the dunk, as you can tell, has meant a whole lot to me.”
When requested what his youthful self would take into consideration listening to him speak about dunking now — this unique membership he first joined as a 14-year-old sporting slacks and gown footwear, one which has represented ache and pleasure, ageing and authenticity — Johnson as a substitute chooses to show the query round.
“I’d tell 16-year old me,” he says, “do it until the wheels come off.”
(Illustration by Rachel Orr / The Athletic. Photos of Derrick Jones Jr. (left) and Anthony Edwards (proper): Amanda Loman and David Berding / Getty Images)
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