Can you dunk? | Page 4 | The Boneyard

Can you dunk?

Can you dunk?

  • Yes

    Votes: 15 6.3%

  • No

    Votes: 165 69.0%

  • No, but I could back in the day.

    Votes: 59 24.7%
  • Total voters
    239
Demo Square said:
Guys,

NYC former hoops freak here - 75 years old now, 6'4" (Was 6'5-1/2" - HA!)
  • 1st dunk - 12 y.o - 7th grade - 5'10"
  • Last dunk - 54 years old, on a metal knee in a league game
  • Played Div. I & Euro pro

I've had both knees & hips replaced, arthritic spine & operations, etc. - all badges of honor for playing 48 years straight. Now, I talk about the Glory Days - HA! Gaining yet more weight sitting around during COVID.

Was one of the lucky white kids w/ hops in the 60's. Used to go into gyms around the city & could hear murmurs of "white boy" in the background. They'd go crazy when I threw down.

First points in high school were typical: At Boys & Girls High School (Brooklyn) They didn't box me out, long missed shot from the corner, two-hand slam "at he top of the square" over the other high-flyers off weak-side rebound.

Because the NCAA thought it would hurt one extraordinary contemporary player named Lewis Alcindor from Power Memorial, dunking was outlawed for ten years after my junior year. We all really missed out for H.S. & college dunks.

I once tip-dunked over Jimmie Walker (Jalen Rose's famous NBA dad) in a summer pro/am tournament at the West 4th Street court near Father Demo Square. And was dunked on incessantly by one Julie Erving, a younger friend from the Island playing 'one-o-cap' many times at Hempstead's Kennedy Park. Sometimes joined by a skinny frequent-flyer from Mineola, a great kid named Bill Corley - ring a bell?

Dunking was once a very special deal when hoops was almost a city cult game for tall kids. Now, everybody can fly, & it's almost a cliche. In Zion's case, it defies physics & gravity.

Father Demo
Expand ...
Best post of the thread.
 
Kenny11 said:
I'm 5'10 (was listed as 6'0). I have a few legitimate dunks out of thousand of attempts but never in a game. But rim-grab layups were my thing as well as slapping the backboard as hard as possible on layups, block attempts, after shots, in warmups, etc.
Expand ...

Yeah, I was a world class back board slapper.

Was also real good untangling nets that looped around the rim.

Think I max'd out dunking a volleyball.

Never close with a men's or women's bball even though I could easily palm a men"a ball.

5' 11.88888" inches in my prime.
 
Deepster said:
Best post of the thread.
Expand ...
B.S. I bet he's bogey golfer as well.

@Demo Square kidding. It was a very nice post. This is embarrassing, but I didn't know Jalen Rose's dad was an nba player. Not sure how I missed that over all these years.
 
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husky8273 said:
probably just Boys High in your day. played a game there in '72-'73, different neighborhood today.
Expand ...
Yeah Husky8273

Thanks. Yeah, it WAS Boy's High back then - Girls added later, '80's?.

Sadly, since WWII, the neighborhood around Boys HS has gotten progressively more challenging each year for survival. Was not as bad when I played there some 60 years ago.

Back then, Boys' best player on a great team was Vaughn Harper & they were NYC Public School champs often in the 60's.. I was respectful, but not fearful to go into that area of Bed-Stuy to watch or play pickup games.

Today, I would be an easy target there. Sadly, Boys HS has dropped precipitously to become about the worst-ranked school perennially in NY State. And Boys' better players now are usually siphoned off to the better parochial "Saints & Bishops:" Molloy, Loughlin, Ford, Christ the King, St. Francis, McClancy, etc. Sad. Absolute longtime poverty kills bodies & spirits - absolutely!!

Father Demo
 
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NDakotaHusky said:
B.S. I bet he's bogie golfer as well.

@Demo Square kidding. It was a very nice post. This is embarrassing, but I didn't know Jalen Rose's dad was an nba player. Not sure how I missed that over all these years.
Expand ...
I Love the State of North Dakota, Husky!

RE: "Bogie Golfer?" I was a poor city kid with no access to greenery or expensive links & had no father to introduce me to the game of golf.

I never saw golf as a fit for me - with so many other great sports to play - & because of the "bourgeois" connotations associated with the game to many. Ha!

My introduction to that great game was as a caddie, working for my college spending money in the summers. I've never played golf. I'd be a walking bogey 10 - HA!

Just some old hoops memories from a long, long time ago. Sorry if it looks like "dropping names" or B.S. I loved to dunk - but never to embarrass any other player with a chest thump or an in yo' face glare. Just slam it & get back on D.

Enjoy the game!

Father Demo
 
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.-.
Demo Square said:
I Love the State of North Dakota, Husky!

RE: "Bogie Golfer?" I was a poor city kid with no access to greenery or expensive links & had no father to introduce me to the game of golf.

I never saw golf as a fit for me - with so many other great sports to play - & because of the "bourgoise" connotations associated with the game to many. Ha!

My introduction to that great game was as a caddie, working for my college spending money in the summers. I've never played golf. I'd be a walking bogey 10 - HA!

Just some old hoops memories from a long, long time ago. Sorry if it looks like "dropping names" or B.S. I loved to dunk - but never to embarrass any other player with a chest thump or an in yo' face glare. Just slam it & get back on D.

Enjoy the game!

Father Demo
Expand ...
My guess is you're the best player on this board with the best basketball stories, please keep them coming.
 
Demo Square said:
I Love the State of North Dakota, Husky!

RE: "Bogie Golfer?" I was a poor city kid with no access to greenery or expensive links & had no father to introduce me to the game of golf.

I never saw golf as a fit for me - with so many other great sports to play - & because of the "bourgoise" connotations associated with the game to many. Ha!

My introduction to that great game was as a caddie, working for my college spending money in the summers. I've never played golf. I'd be a walking bogey 10 - HA!

Just some old hoops memories from a long, long time ago. Sorry if it looks like "dropping names" or B.S. I loved to dunk - but never to embarrass any other player with a chest thump or an in yo' face glare. Just slam it & get back on D.

Enjoy the game!

Father Demo
Expand ...
Follow my lead and just claim you are a bogey golfer. Nobody is checking.

North Dakota is great. Winter blows, but summer is fabulous. Big Midwest skies, thunder and lightning. My commute is also only 7 minutes and I live right in the middle of the largest city. My advice for all is to get away from the coast. In particular the northeast.

Pizza sucks though.....
 
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I could dunk in the layup line in intramurals but never came close to even having a chance in a game.

6 months after starting my first job, I got back on the court and couldn’t get off the ground. Still a depressing thought.
 
WhereistheDove? said:
When I was in elementary school, I was both the youngest and tallest kid in my class. Doctors told me I would be 6'5" to 6'7". Never broke 6 feet.
Expand ...
I feel like every kid came back from their fourth grade physical saying the doc said they’d be 6’8 or something lol.
My story is similar but I have a November birthday and was the oldest. I was average to even a little short until 8th grade. I went from 5’5 to 5’10 in a matter of weeks. That part was cool but I was also the first kid with arm hair and a peach fuzz stache. Less cool. Anyways, I was the same exact height on my first day of HS as my last.
 
.-.
Demo Square said:
Guys,

NYC former hoops freak here - 75 years old now, 6'4" (Was 6'5-1/2" - HA!)
  • 1st dunk - 12 y.o - 7th grade - 5'10"
  • Last dunk - 54 years old, on a metal knee in a league game
  • Played Div. I & Euro pro

I've had both knees & hips replaced, arthritic spine & operations, etc. - all badges of honor for playing 48 years straight. Now, I talk about the Glory Days - HA! Gaining yet more weight sitting around during COVID.

Was one of the lucky white kids w/ hops in the 60's. Used to go into gyms around the city & could hear murmurs of "white boy" in the background. They'd go crazy when I threw down.

First points in high school were typical: At Boys & Girls High School (Brooklyn) They didn't box me out, long missed shot from the corner, two-hand slam "at he top of the square" over the other high-flyers off weak-side rebound.

Because the NCAA thought it would hurt one extraordinary contemporary player named Lewis Alcindor from Power Memorial, dunking was outlawed for ten years after my junior year. We all really missed out for H.S. & college dunks.

I once tip-dunked over Jimmie Walker (Jalen Rose's famous NBA dad) in a summer pro/am tournament at the West 4th Street court near Father Demo Square. And was dunked on incessantly by one Julie Erving, a younger friend from the Island playing 'one-o-cap' many times at Hempstead's Kennedy Park. Sometimes joined by a skinny frequent-flyer from Mineola, a great kid named Bill Corley - ring a bell?

Dunking was once a very special deal when hoops was almost a city cult game for tall kids. Now, everybody can fly, & it's almost a cliche. In Zion's case, it defies physics & gravity.

Father Demo
Expand ...
Boys & Girls was the alma mater of Pearl Washington, one of my favorite all time PGs to watch. Any interaction on or off the court with him?
 
6’1 and couldn’t palm the ball but had some hops and dunked mostly in layup lines. A couple breakaway’s until blowing out my knee in my mid-20’s. Thirty years later I just brag on message boards to total strangers that I was able to jam.
 
NDakotaHusky said:
Follow my lead and just claim you are a bogey golfer. Nobody is checking.

North Dakota is great. Winter blows, but summer is fabulous. Big Midwest skies, thunder and lightning. My commute is also only 7 minutes and I live right in the middle of the largest city. My advice for all is to get away from the coast. In particular the northeast.

Pizza sucks though.....
Expand ...
Thanks, NDakotahusky!

Bogey Golfer here!

Hey, I have a close friend in Williston who owns a fleet of trucks & a water & oil hauling business out at Bakken. Made a fortune out of nothing with no help. He always challenged me to visit him there, so I did in Early Autumn, 2012.

First, I loved the endless horizon, space & wide-open terrain with the Big Sky back-drop. Second, the people of North Dakota are just so real & down to Earth. Made me feel completely welcome. They are straight-shooters, very hard workers, look you in the eye, deal on a handshake folks - the kind of people who will always be there to help you out in a pinch. And, they look very comfortable in their own skins & place. Really surprised me, so much so, I visited again in 2015.

Had another great time! But got to go onto Lakota-Sioux Reservation lands as a guest with my friend, plus the Badlands & Red River Valley in the east. Some great experiences that broadened my ND perspective.

So I'm with ya on the Roughrider State, ndakotahusky! I never dunked in North Dakota. But I definteily could live there, Ha!

Father Demo!

BTW - I left the northeast decades ago!
 
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It's so depressing. When I was young, I could dunk a mini basketball on a regulation hoop. Now I can barely touch the net. Getting old sucks. I need to call Frank Thomas to get some Nugent. "She'll like it too."
 
Demo Square said:
Thanks, NDakotahusky!

Bogey Golfer here!

Hey, I have a close friend in Williston who owns a fleet of trucks & a water & oil hauling business out at Bakken. Made a fortune out of nothing with no help. He always challenged me to visit him there, so I did in Early Autumn, 2012.

First, I loved the endless horizon, space & wide-open terrain with the Big Sky back-drop. Second, the people of North Dakota are just so real & down to Earth. Made me feel completely welcome. They are straight-shooters, very hard workers, look you in the eye, deal on a handshake folks - the kind of people who will always be there to help you out in a pinch. And, they look very comfortable in their own skins & place. Really surprised me, so much so, I visited again in 2015.

Had another great time! But got to go onto Sioux Reservation lands as a guest with my friend, plus the Badlands & Red River Valley. Some great experiences that broadened my ND perspective.

So I'm with ya on the Roughrider State, ndakotahusky! I never dunked in North Dakota. But I definteily could live there, Ha!

Father Demo!

BTW - I left the northeast decades ago!
Expand ...
Williston is proper North Dakota. Only a few hours west are the Rockies and great skiing. The drive is cool. Watching the continent turn from plains, to badlands to mountains. The reservations are interesting. High poverty. Some of the reservation high schools can ball a bit. Its all small school stuff, but still cool. Edit: pretty sure the infamous David Wingett is native. Not sure what tribe. But definitely one of plains Indian Tribes. From a reservation community in Nebraska.
 
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.-.
Once, and once only, if one generously calls it a dunk. At 6'2", on a good day I could get about half my palm over the rim and could just barely palm the ball. This was a better than good day. Running start. Got high enough to clear the near side rim, hit the opposite side and have it rattle around before dropping.
 
Demo Square said:
I was respectful, but not fearful to go into that area of Bed-Stuy to watch or play pickup games.

Today, I would be an easy target there.
Expand ...
I think you might be surprised at the kind of folks you can find walking around most parts of Bed-Stuy these days...
 
NDakotaHusky said:
B.S. I bet he's bogey golfer as well.

@Demo Square kidding. It was a very nice post. This is embarrassing, but I didn't know Jalen Rose's dad was an nba player. Not sure how I missed that over all these years.
Expand ...
The greatest Friar. He also holds the distinction of being the only person to be the #1 draft pick in the NBA draft and Mr. Irrelevant in the same year in the NFL draft.
 
WhereistheDove? said:
Judging by my experiences playing pickup in high school/college/after, I feel like a decent chunk of the 27% of people saying they could dunk at one point may be getting a bit loose with the definition of "dunk".
Expand ...

Exactly.

I am calling bullscalito on everyone who claims they were 6' or under and dunked. Being 5'10" and dunking would probably put someone in the Top 0.01% of athletes in the country. Something tells me that the Boneyard doesn't have 5 people like that posting here. Here is some perspective on jumping.

Average Vertical Jump: By Age, Sport, NBA and NFL (homeexerciseequipmenthq.com)

I am 6'3, and had a 25-26 inch standing vertical in college, which is pretty good for someone that was not a D1 athlete. I could only dunk a women's basketball.

Dunking is as much a math problem as an athletic one, and like being intimate with a woman, every extra inch matters, A LOT. I am halfway to my second knuckle over an 8 foot rim when I am standing flat footed. So, to get up to a 10 foot rim, plus be enough over the rim to get a men's basketball over and through the rim, I needed to get about 30-31" off the ground with a running start and have perfect extension when I did it. Websites will tell you that you need 4 extra inches over the 10' to dunk a basketball, but for mortals, the number is probably more like 6-7 inches because the vast majority of us are not coordinated enough to time the dunk perfectly. We need a cushion.

So if someone is 5'10, and their finger tip when flat footed is probably 7'5" or something like that, they need to be jumping OVER THREE FEET UP to dunk. Does everyone realize how ridiculous that is?

Many parks, especially back in the day, had non-regulation rims, and so some of you may have thrown down on a rim that was between 9' and 10' off the ground. That is a LOT easier than dunking on a 10' rim. Back in the 90's, the courts at Alumni dorms on campus were 9'6", and a lot of us were Michael Jordan on those. I could reverse dunk off an alley-oop and would play games there where I would only dunk, because why not? That is a lot easier than dunking on a 10' rim.
 
.-.
WhereistheDove? said:
I think you might be surprised at the kind of folks you can find walking around most parts of Bed-Stuy these days...
Expand ...


Yup. My best Friend and his family live in Bed-Stuy now. Have for a couple years. The 11 year old allowed to walk to school alone now, and supervise the 7 year old on the streets at times. Totally different area now.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Exactly.

I am calling bullscalito on everyone who claims they were 6' or under and dunked. Being 5'10" and dunking would probably put someone in the Top 0.01% of athletes in the country. Something tells me that the Boneyard doesn't have 5 people like that posting here. Here is some perspective on jumping.

Average Vertical Jump: By Age, Sport, NBA and NFL (homeexerciseequipmenthq.com)

I am 6'3, and had a 25-26 inch standing vertical in college, which is pretty good for someone that was not a D1 athlete. I could only dunk a women's basketball.

Dunking is as much a math problem as an athletic one, and like being intimate with a woman, every extra inch matters, A LOT. I am halfway to my second knuckle over an 8 foot rim when I am standing flat footed. So, to get up to a 10 foot rim, plus be enough over the rim to get a men's basketball over and through the rim, I needed to get about 30-31" off the ground with a running start and have perfect extension when I did it. Websites will tell you that you need 4 extra inches over the 10' to dunk a basketball, but for mortals, the number is probably more like 6-7 inches because the vast majority of us are not coordinated enough to time the dunk perfectly. We need a cushion.

So if someone is 5'10, and their finger tip when flat footed is probably 7'5" or something like that, they need to be jumping OVER THREE FEET UP to dunk. Does everyone realize how ridiculous that is?

Many parks, especially back in the day, had non-regulation rims, and so some of you may have thrown down on a rim that was between 9' and 10' off the ground. That is a LOT easier than dunking on a 10' rim. Back in the 90's, the courts at Alumni dorms on campus were 9'6", and a lot of us were Michael Jordan on those. I could reverse dunk off an alley-oop and would play games there where I would only dunk, because why not? That is a lot easier than dunking on a 10' rim.
Expand ...
I dunno. Your analysis looks convincing. All I know is that I am a god awful athlete and 5'9", and I could get a couple knuckles over the rim. Doesn't seem like a stretch to think that a good (like top 20%) athlete could get up the extra 6 inches or so needed to do the deed.
 
August_West said:
Yup. My best Friend and his family live in Bed-Stuy now. Have for a couple years. The 11 year old allowed to walk to school alone now, and supervise the 7 year old on the streets at times. Totally different area now
Expand ...
When a place serving this is a couple of blocks from Boys and Girls on Malcolm X Blvd, you can kind of get the picture.
images
 
I could only get within a few inches of the rim and I couldn't palm the ball, but I'm taller than all of these guys.

 
Give a donut and a cup of coffee.

I will show you a dunk that will make your head spin.
 
.-.
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