People kept asking me to rank the best dunkers. So I finally did.
This was the last weekly Q&A I filmed on my channel, and I tacked it onto a leg day so you could see the lifting behind the jumps too. The questions were good ones, all pulled from the comments on my previous training video, so I took my time with the answers. Ranking pro dunkers, my favorite NBA players, my shoe picks, and then the squats and power cleans I was grinding through while my knees were acting up.
My Top Pro Dunkers Right Now
The first question was who I had in my top five professional dunkers. It’s a hard one, because anything could change and you have to weigh the different sides of what makes a dunker great. You could argue about the best pro dunkers all day. Chris Staples has won the most contests and is super consistent with a few really good dunks. Or you could say someone else because of how much they’ve created.
For me, the number one spot went to Jordan Kilganon. I know him probably the best out of the top pro guys, but the bigger reason is that he’s created hundreds of dunks, completed a lot of them, and they’re the best dunks ever. So many of the dunks you see other guys do, he did first. That’s just insane to me. He does them consistently, he still wins contests, but his goal isn’t to win contests. It’s to push the boundaries of dunking constantly. That’s why he’s my number one.
Number two for me right now is Isaiah Rivera. Jordan and Isaiah are so close it could honestly flip back and forth week to week. Isaiah has the world record vertical at 50.5 inches, and he’s hit the 360 Kamikaze a couple of times. Those two are my one and two.
Then Jordan Sutherland. Best one-footer in the world right now, no question in my opinion. He’s hit so many dunks off one foot that we didn’t think were possible before. He’s locked into my top three.
Another guy I think is super underrated is Dan Gross. I talked to him a while back, super nice guy, and he’s hitting insane dunks constantly, things we’ve never seen before. He’s top five for me right now.
The fifth spot is where I got stuck. There are so many dunkers I could slot in there that a lot of them are basically interchangeable. So instead of forcing a fifth name, I went broader and named some guys I’d put in my all-time top ten. GPK is one of the best one-footers ever, him and Sutherland I couldn’t even pick between. TDub is a close friend of mine, I’ve dunked with him once and want more sessions soon, and he’s the best dunker under six foot ever. Tyler Curry is probably top five right now. Chris Staples is probably top ten. There are just so many guys to consider that I couldn’t name them all.
So my clear top three: Kilganon, Isaiah, and Sutherland. If you want to know what each of these dunks actually is, I broke them all down in my every professional dunk explained guide.
My Favorite NBA Players
The next question was my favorite NBA players, and honestly my favorites are basically just the dunkers.
Anthony Edwards was my favorite at the moment, partly because I live in Minnesota and he’s a pretty good dunker. I’d love to see him try crazier stuff. I’ve seen him do Windmills, and I saw him doing an Eastbay back in high school. I’d really like to train with an NBA player one day and show them some dunks, because I feel like I could get Ant doing some wild things.
Besides Ant, my favorite is probably Zach LaVine. A lot of people don’t know he used to play for Minnesota, so I watched him when he was here, and he’s an insane dunker. I loved him in the dunk contest back around 2016 or 2017. Ja Morant, if he could stay on the court, was one of my favorites too.
My favorite all-time player is Michael Jordan. His highlight reel is just insane, the way he hung in the air. One thing though, I do not believe he had a 48-inch vertical. I’m basically positive he didn’t. Most NBA player verticals are false numbers anyway. But everything else I’ve seen from him is incredible.
My Shoe Picks: Indoor And Outdoor
The last question was about my favorite shoes. It was asked for indoor, but I covered both.
I’ll be honest, I don’t really care much about outdoor shoes. I wear what I have, usually old shoes or my school shoes. One warning though. I wore the LeBron 20s outside a little while back and it was not good. I have the ones with the translucent outsole, the clear one, and I’d plant super hard and the shoe would slip a little. It was scary enough that I nearly rolled or tore something. So don’t do that.
Indoor is where I actually have opinions. My top three are the Way of Wade 10s, the Way of Wade All City 12s, and the Kobe 6s.
The Way of Wade 10s, both lows and highs, get my number one. The lows are probably more comfortable. They’ve got carbon fiber, they’re super light, and the traction is insane. Number two is the All City 12. Way of Wade sent me a pair to review a few months back, and I liked them so much that I bought a second pair in a color I actually wanted. The traction is just as crazy, a little heavier than the 10s but still really light.
Number three is the Kobe 6. A guy sent me a pair for free to review. They’re not real, but I’ve seen and felt real Kobe 6s and they’re basically the same, one to one. They look identical and perform identical, if not better. They’re probably the nicest basketball shoes I own. They’re super light, have carbon fiber, and the traction is crazy too.
The Leg Day Behind The Jumps
This whole Q&A was filmed during a leg day, so let me walk you through the lifting. I opened with power cleans, and honestly my form felt weird that day. I’d planned to work up to 175 or 185, but my brain just wasn’t locking in, so I stuck where I was rather than push something I couldn’t control. That last set actually wasn’t too bad in the end.
Then I moved to squats. I half squat to about 90-degree depth because my proportions don’t really let me go lower, and half squats are about as specific to dunking as you can get with a much lower injury risk than deep squatting. You can see more of how I think about my vert and training in that breakdown.
I ran six sets, climbing the whole way: 205, 225, 245, 265, 285, and then 300. The 285 was probably my best set, the bar stayed even and my back was straight and it felt really easy. The 300 was a big weight for me. That was my one-rep PR about six months ago, and this time I did it for three reps. Last week at 300 my back rounded a lot and it got a little scary, but I’d mostly fixed that this week. The only trade-off was I didn’t hit the same depth, so getting 300 to full depth is the next goal.
The reason I cap at 300 is simple. I literally only own 300 pounds of weight. I want to keep adding every week, kind of like Dom Dunks did coming back from his quad tear, climbing to around 350 or 355. I’d love a couple more 45s so I could push it, but for now 300 is the ceiling.
I also gave a quick injury update. The quad tendinitis in my left knee was feeling a lot better, either healing or I’m just getting better at managing it. The bigger problem lately was patellar tendinitis, the typical jumper’s knee, in my right knee. No clue why it switched sides, maybe just more jumping. I’ve been adjusting my isos to deal with it. The rest of the workout was Nordics, calf raises, and core, same as a leg day I filmed two weeks earlier, but I was in a time crunch so I didn’t film the rest. If you want the kind of session this builds toward, here’s a full vertical jump workout I filmed.
Why This Was The Last Weekly Q&A
The big announcement at the end was the reason I’m stopping these weekly Q&As. I just started a podcast called the Dunk Talk, where I interview amateur and pro dunkers. I’d already recorded a few interviews and had a pro lined up, and it’s eating up the time the Q&As used to take. If you want to hear me talk dunking with the guys who are best at it, that’s where to find it. I wrote more about why I started the Dunk Talk Podcast separately.
Thanks for tuning in to all the weekly Q&As. There’s another Minnesota Dunk Squad session coming soon, and I’ll see you in the next one.
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