Right after my first Dunk Camp, I sat down with Dylan Haugen for episode 12 of the Dunk Talk Podcast and told the whole story: how I went from spinning a basketball in my bedroom in Rigby, Idaho to two million YouTube subscribers at 16, with a Tonight Show appearance, a Harlem Globetrotters collab, and a Utah Jazz partnership along the way. Dunk Talk wrote the episode up on their site too. This is my side of that conversation, with the parts I want people to actually take with them.
Randomly good at it
Spinning started when I was little. Like I told Dylan, “when I was a kid I started doing it and I was just already kind of good at it. I could do the Globetrotter up-and-through when I was like eight or nine.” I did talent shows for our town, and then I just kept doing it, basically every day, all the time.
The real jump came at 14. We had a family trip to New York City coming up and I decided I wanted to street perform there. So I practiced from August to September, “just every day, two, three hours, just making up new dribbles.” I invented a new trick every week, and by the end I could not miss. My finger paid for it: “my finger was all black, it had burn marks on it.” The street performance happened, and after that, spinning was the thing.
Three or four videos a day from my bedroom
My first channel was the one every kid makes: a trick shot channel with my friends and my neighbor, back when we were all watching Dude Perfect. Teachers would end up watching them because my friends played them at school. That channel faded after a year or two.
What actually started my career was getting a phone at 14, the summer of that New York trip. “My mom did not like YouTube at all, but I just downloaded it and started making basketball spinning videos in my room, every day, three or four videos. They were just terrible quality.” I did not care. I kept posting.
People assume there is a fancy setup behind the videos now. There is not. I still edit everything in CapCut on my phone, and I told Dylan the honest math: it takes me about three hours to edit a video, and “I basically spend probably eight hours a week on the app alone.” No tutorials, just trial and error for years. If you are starting a channel, stop shopping for editing tools and start getting your reps in with the free one you already have.
The Globetrotters found me in their comments
The first big break: the Harlem Globetrotters booked a tour stop five or ten minutes from my town, and I found out 57 days ahead. So I made it a countdown. “Every day I would post: 54 days, 53 days, 52 days.” Then my whole community commented on one of the Globetrotters videos, and “one of the Globetrotters, not even the actual channel, saw my comment and checked out my channel.” They told me to DM them on Instagram.
Two problems. I did not have Instagram. And “my mom had no idea I had a YouTube channel.” I made the Instagram that night, sent the DM, and ended up with courtside tickets right next to their bench. I left school halfway through the day and “from like two to six we just made videos with them,” on a brand-new NBA-quality court in a hockey arena they were using for the first time. That was the first time this felt like it could be a career.
The scammy Tonight Show email
The Tonight Show did not find me on YouTube. They found my TikTok, a clip of me spinning a basketball on a toothbrush. I was around 1.8 million subscribers when the email came in, and I almost blew it: “the email said Tonight Show appearance. I did not know the show was called The Tonight Show. I thought, what is this scammy Tonight Show?” I did not respond. They emailed again the next day, I showed it to my dad, and he said, that is Jimmy Fallon’s show. Dang it.
So I flew to New York and spun a basketball on a toothbrush in front of Jimmy Fallon on national TV. Meeting everyone there that day is probably still the coolest experience the channel has given me.
Midnight application, AirRack’s talent show
AirRack announced a talent show on his Instagram story, and I saw it at 11:30 at night when the story had already been up for six hours. I figured I was probably too late, but “I spent from 12 to 2 a.m. making a video of all my stuff and sent it.” I told my friend I probably would not make it. The next week my mom texted me at school: you made it.
The shoot was the same weekend as my school basketball tryouts, and I went anyway. There were about 25 of us, some of the most talented young creators in the world, including the best yo-yo player alive. And the set taught me how real YouTube videos get made: “they had like 15 workers there just doing the cameras, they had a director telling us what to do.” Intros take 20 tries. Seeing everything behind the scenes was the coolest part.
I cold-emailed 20 people at the Utah Jazz
The Jazz partnership came from a list. I knew I was going to a Jazz game in two weeks, so I found a page with everyone who worked there, all the marketing and social media people, and emailed about 20 of them. One responded the same day. Then “he called me at school” and I declined the call because I thought it was spam. We sorted it out over email, and we are still friends. I have made a video with the Jazz and went back down to Salt Lake for a three-on-three video with them.
Put your email in every bio
If there is one thing from the episode worth stealing, it is this: “everything that I have made has been through emails. If you go to my YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, I have my email in all my bios.” Instagram DMs get you free product sometimes. The real opportunities, the Tonight Show, the sponsorships, the partnerships, they come through email. If you are a creator and there is no email in your bio, you are leaving money on the table.
Dunk Camp: like LeBron walked in
I had been watching Dunkademics videos for four years, and the Dunk Camp video was my favorite every year. When I realized the camp was about three hours from me in Salt Lake, I texted Dylan and asked if I should go. He said go. From sign-up to camp, my dad and I dunked on 8 foot at his gym, Jump Start Sports Academy, for an hour or two basically every Sunday.
Walking into the hotel was surreal. I saw Dylan and CJ first, then Isaiah Rivera walked past, and “it felt like I just saw LeBron James walk in. By the end of the week it was normal seeing these guys.”
Day one we tested verticals. “I was expecting to touch like 10’6″, 10’7″, because that is the highest I had measured. I go in there, first try, get 10’7″, 10’8″. I got 10’10” eventually.” And then the moment everyone remembers: Dylan told Jordan Southerland I could spin a basketball, so Southerland came over and asked what I could do. I threw a lob up to the rim expecting he would catch it into a windmill. “He just goes up, grabs it, double elbows it. I have never seen that in person.” First try. No warmup.
Winning the 8-foot contest
I jumped way too much on day one and my left quad was dead for the rest of the week, so Thursday morning I warmed up praying. For about 15 minutes, right when the contest happened, my legs stopped hurting. The field was loaded with low-rim guys: Hoopin Nate, Hunter Castona, Luke, Rick.
I had been sitting on the same game plan for six months. Dunk one was my Vince Carter reverse 360 windmill, the one I told Dylan “I do not ever miss.” I missed it twice, then made it. Dunk two was a 360 between the legs with a Dee Brown cover at the end, which I had never done before that day. “No one had even seen me do the Dee Brown yet, they just thought I was doing a 360 between the legs. Once I made it, everyone was freaking out.” The final was a 360 under both off one foot, a dunk I had made maybe once or twice in my life. I faked like I was messing up, pointed at Hunter, did a little twirl, and eventually punched it home. The scores came out around 67 to 52.
The part I love: my first dunk was off a right-left plant, the second was left-right, and the third was off one foot. All three types of jumping in one contest.
What I am chasing now
Consistency, mostly. I can get up, but like I said on the pod, “give me 10 tries, I will make four dunks if I am feeling good.” I want 10-foot dunks to feel automatic, and I want the 180 windmill version consistent. My dad and I started Jordan Kilganon’s jump program together, with a dunk session about every eight days.
On the content side, the channel keeps evolving. A year ago it was straight basketball spinning; now it is anything basketball, and the flip videos can pull in tens of millions of views. The goal stays the same either way: “making every video better than the last.” And I am still working the email angle on the biggest one yet, an NBA All-Star Game appearance.
Watch the full episode
The full conversation is at the top of this post, and there is more in it that I did not cover here. Big thanks to Dylan Haugen for having me on. Check out the Dunk Talk Podcast for more episodes like this, and their own writeup of mine is right here.