If youve always wanted to dunk, now some leagues just lower the rim -

The desire to dunk a basketball is shared by people around the world. Those who can do it describe dunking as a way to temporarily defy gravity.

But most human beings can’t dunk. Being able to seemingly levitate and fly through the air in a powerful display of athleticism is mostly limited to basketball stars and those gifted in height and vertical leaping abilities.

Low-rim basketball leagues want to change that.

By lowering the height of a traditional 10-foot basketball hoop by up to a foot and a half, more players in recreational leagues can now dunk. Highlight videos of players dunking in low-rim basketball leagues have amassed millions of views on social media, and the ability to dunk in a competitive setting is a significant part of the appeal.

“The first time you do it in the game is just crazy,” said Joey Zocco, the founder and chief executive of Legacy Leagues, a low-rim basketball league located in Connecticut and Rhode Island. “I think it’s almost like shock. It’s like joy. It’s like that feeling a kid gets when they do something for the first time in a sport.”

The rise of low-rim basketball leagues

Growing up in Connecticut, Zocco, 31, would play on a lowered hoop in his backyard with his friends. Jared Hanson, a 31-year-old Scituate, R.I., resident who plays in Legacy Leagues, took it a step further and had a trampoline next to his lowered basketball hoop so he could dunk.

The two were college roommates at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut when Zocco suggested starting a low-rim league. Legacy Leagues launched in 2016 in Trumbull, Conn., and has since expanded into Rhode Island, where Zocco now lives.

Low-rim basketball remains a niche, but there have been recreational leagues that have drawn attention in recent years, partially due to social media. Last July, NBA superstar LeBron James shared a video posted by Overtime, a sports media company, about Legacy Leagues on his Instagram account.

“I think it will spread,” Hanson said of low-rim basketball leagues. “This is a chance for people to experience what it’s like to dunk while it’s also competitive. Everyone can buy a hoop and lower it, but now it’s a game setting, and it can matter.”

Legacy Leagues is played with 8½-foot rims, with four players on each team. The League attracts about 80 to 100 participants (mostly former high school basketball players) each season, Zocco said, and there is a height limit of 6-foot-4. So far, the league is men’s only.

Last April in Utah, 22-year-old Tyler Bush started DB Jam League, another low-rim basketball league. Bush hosts one-day tournaments in which four to eight teams compete with 8½-foot rims. DB Jam League — DB is short for “dunk ball” — has hosted 11 tournaments so far.

Dunks in the league are given a higher value. All dunks are worth two points, shots beyond the three-point line are also worth two points and any other shot scores just one point.

“You’re able to shift your style of play,” Bush said. “Somebody who’s a little shorter or smaller can turn into a dunker.”

The art and awe of dunking

John Evans, a 30-year-old Orlando resident, coaches dunkers for a living as the co-owner of THP Strength, an online coaching service for athletes looking to jump higher.

He still gets chills thinking about his first dunk. Evans was a 5-foot-10 freshman in high school when, during a junior varsity basketball practice, one of his teammates urged him to try dunking. Evans threw it off the back of the rim the first time he tried, but on the next attempt, he barreled down to the rim from the left side, cocked the ball back and slammed it in.

“You’re actually in awe,” Evans said. “It’s euphoric. It’s really, really exciting. Every time after your first dunk you’re chasing that sensation, that feeling.”

Asher Price can understand the chase. The 44-year-old Austin-based journalist wrote about his dunking journey in his book, “Year of the Dunk: A Modest Defiance of Gravity,” published in 2015.

“I was interested in dunking, because it’s one of the most exuberant sports moves possible,” Price said. “It’s fun and awesome. It’s also something you can judge empirically: Either you can or can’t.”

Andy Nicholson, who turns 52 this month, didn’t really start dunking consistently until his 40s and wants more people to experience the feeling of dunking. It’s the reason he started the Dunk Camp in 2018, which Nicholson describes as “100 percent dedicated to helping athletes be able to do what’s the most beautiful and athletic feat in all sports, which is dunking a basketball.”

The four-day long annual camp started in Utah and expanded to Dallas last year. Each year, about 70 participants gather for classroom sessions on proper ways to train for dunking, hear from professional dunkers and practice dunking on rims of varying heights. The camp, which will be held in Utah and Wisconsin this summer, concludes with a dunk show put on by the pro dunkers, and all attendees can participate in dunking during warm-ups.

Victoria Agyin attended the camp last year in Dallas. Agyin, a 23-year-old track and field athlete specializing in the long and triple jump at San José State University, said that dunking was always on her mind in middle school. She was obsessed with basketball stars Candace Parker and Russell Westbrook. But both of those players are well above 6 feet tall. Agyin stands at 5 feet 6 inches without shoes.

She wants to be one of the shortest women to have ever dunked a basketball on a 10-foot rim. Agyin, who has previously trained with Evans and THP Strength, said that she was able to dunk on a 9½-foot rim, and measured her standing vertical leap at 30 inches at the Dunk Camp. She hopes to dunk on a 10-foot hoop by May.

“It just feels like flying,” Agyin said of dunking. “It just feels like levitating. You feel the air near your ear, like whoosh.”

How to train for dunking

Dunking requires core strength and powerful leg muscles. But turning an average person into a superstar jumper is unlikely, said Ed Coyle, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin.

Having a high percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which generate short, powerful bursts of energy, helps.

“Right now we don’t think it’s possible to turn slow-twitch muscle fibers into fast-twitch muscle fibers,” Coyle said.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to improve your jumping abilities. Experts and coaches recommend a training regimen that includes plyometric exercises like skipping and hopping and weight training. Exercises like squats, dead lifts, power cleans and lunges are often part of a training program, said Nicholson, who has a goal of dunking until he’s 55.

There are also risks with dunking. A common injury is patellar tendinopathy or jumper’s knee, said Isaiah Rivera, a 26-year-old professional dunker and trainer with THP in Orlando. And with dunking, you are often slamming your wrist or hand against an iron cylinder. Those body parts can get bruised.

Practicing on lowered rims can help people learn the proper technique, Rivera said. Rivera, who is 6-foot-1½ without shoes, said that he has a standing vertical of 38 inches and an approach vertical, which includes a running start, of 50.5 inches. He is a fan of low-rim basketball leagues. He started dunking on low rims himself.

“Just try dunking on a low rim, and you’ll understand why it’s so addicting and so fun,” Rivera said.

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