There were a lot of very good dunkers at The Dunk Camp in Salt Lake City this year. One of them was an eighteen-year-old from Poland who spent most of the week doing things that made the rest of us stop and put our phones up. I want that on the record somewhere permanent, so here it is.

“Piotr is the youngest athlete to ever get a black band, which is the most prestigious level of dunking, and he’s the youngest to do it.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

The black band is the top of the ranking system dunkers use on each other. A very small number of people in the world hold one. Most of them earned it after a long career and a lot of surgeries. Piotr Zawiślak of Poland got there before he could legally rent a car in the United States.

He Won the Ten Foot Contest

Camp ends with contests, and the ten-foot one is the one everybody wants. Regulation rim, full field, nowhere to hide behind a lowered goal. He won it.

“He just won the ten foot contest at Dunk Camp. He went crazy. His style’s nuts. He hit a 360 Underboth, which is one of the most elite dunks in the entire world.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

Let me translate the 360 Underboth for anybody reading this who does not live in dunk forums. You spin a full rotation, and while you are spinning you pass the ball under both legs before you finish. Two hard things stacked on top of each other, and the second one starts while you are already blind from the first one. There are people who have been dunking for a decade who have never gotten close to it.

His style is the other half of it. A lot of very athletic dunkers look like they are wrestling the ball. Piotr looks calm at the top, which is a strange thing to see on somebody that young. That is what I was reaching for when I said his style is nuts. It reads clean on video, and clean is what actually travels.

One or Two Tries Is the Whole Thing

Dylan asked what I found most inspiring about him. I did not say the 360 Underboth, and I did not say his vertical. I said the boring thing, which is also the correct thing.

“The most inspiring thing is he can hit everything within like one or two tries, and that’s so important in the dunking world, especially with contests and to be exciting in shows.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

Here is why that matters more than any single dunk. Social media has completely broken people’s sense of what a dunker can do. A clip is one successful attempt, and nobody posts the other forty. I have taken about a million jumps in my life and a very large percentage of them ended with the ball hitting the front of the rim and rolling into a wall.

Contests do not work that way. You get two attempts and a clock. Shows do not work that way either. You are in an arena at halftime, the music is cued, there are eight thousand people, and the crew has ninety seconds before the teams come back out. If your best dunk takes you fifteen tries, you do not have that dunk. You have a highlight of that dunk, which is a different product.

“He hits 360 inverter first try almost every time.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

First try. Almost every time. On a dunk most people will never land at all. That is the number a promoter cares about and it is the number the rest of us quietly measure each other by. Anybody booking talent for a live event is buying reliability, and Piotr is one of the most reliable athletes I watched all week.

The Sky’s the Limit for This Kid

I said this twice in a ninety second video, which either means I could not think of anything else or I really believed it. It was the second one.

“The sky’s the limit for this kid.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

He flew to a FIBA event one week after camp. I said on camera that he was going to crush it, and the reasoning is not complicated. He had just beaten a very deep field on a regulation rim, he was landing his hardest dunk on the first attempt, and he was going into a judged event where consistency is worth more than creativity. That is a good matchup for him.

The other thing worth saying is that he came from outside the American pipeline. He built all of this in Poland, on outdoor rims, watching the same footage everybody else watched, without a gym full of pros to measure himself against. Then he showed up in Utah and won.

He Said Some Things About Me Too

Since this was a two-way interview, I have to report the rest of it honestly. Piotr called me the best low rim dunker he has ever seen, said every dunk you can imagine I can do, and pointed out that I have a right hand and a left hand.

I said thank you roughly four times in ninety seconds, which is the only move I have when somebody compliments me on camera. It is a strange feeling coming from him specifically, because he is the one who just won the contest and I am the one who came up on a Nerf hoop stuck to a kitchen cabinet door in Omaha.

He also watched me on the regulation rim that week and listed off an Eastbay, a 360 windmill and a reverse windmill. I am 5’7″. Those took a long time, and having a black band dunker mention them without being asked is worth more to me than a view count. His version of that afternoon is up on his own site at the best low rim dunker he has ever seen.

Why This Is a Page and Not a Story Post

Dylan Haugen, who runs Dunk Talk, and Dennis Yu ran a session at camp about how athletes get found on Google and in AI answers, audited all 76 campers first, and published the results on a public camp leaderboard. I came out first on that list, which mostly told me my footprint was wide and thin. Then they offered to film anybody who wanted it. This video is that offer being kept, and the system behind it is written up in the camp repurposing breakdown.

Dylan covered the full conversation for the community in the youngest black band meeting the best low rim dunker. Dunker Spotlight looked at why two dunkers backing each other works. There is a version for athletes in any sport at vouching for each other on camera, and the marketing side is at reciprocal credibility between two experts.

If you are a dunker reading this: the next time you watch somebody do something absurd in your gym, say so with a camera on. It costs you nothing and it is the only kind of credential in this sport that you cannot give yourself.

My dad Joe told Dennis Yu, who runs BlitzMetrics, that I have taken about a million jumps. Dennis asked me on camera if that was true and the only honest answer I had was somewhere around there. Nobody keeps a running total. You wake up, you go to the gym, you jump, and then you do it again tomorrow, and eventually somebody does the math for you and the number sounds insane.

The interview above is two minutes long and it happened off to the side of the gym at The Dunk Camp in Utah. It is probably the most honest two minutes I have put on camera, because Dennis asked about the parts of this that nobody asks about. Not the vertical. Not the follower count. The hard days, one specific night with my family, and what I would be doing if none of this existed.

What a Million Jumps Actually Taught Me

Dennis asked what I learned from all of it. I did not have a speech ready. What came out was the thing I have actually believed since I was jumping at a Nerf hoop on a kitchen cabinet door in Omaha.

“That you should never give up. There’s been a lot of hard times in that million jumps, but as long as you persevere, you’re gonna keep making progress.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

That reads simple. Living it is not. A million jumps means thousands of days where the dunk you have been chasing for a month still does not go down, where your knees hurt, where the video you posted does nothing, where somebody you look up to lands the thing you have been grinding on and makes it look easy. Nobody films those days. Those are most of the days.

The progress part is the piece I would tell a younger kid. It is never a jump from bad to good. It is mini hoop to low rim to a real ten foot rim, and each of those took years. I won the low rim title at Dunk Camp in 2025 and people treated it like a breakout. It was a decade of the same boring loop finally showing up in public.

The Night SportsCenter Posted Me

Dennis asked when I realized I was famous. I want to be clear about how I feel about that word, because I corrected him before I answered the question.

“I would never consider myself famous, first off. But the first night I got posted by SportsCenter. I remember my brother came into my room screaming ‘Oh, my goodness.’”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

My brother came sprinting into my room yelling. I had no idea what happened. I thought something was wrong. He showed me the post and then the whole thing turned into a family event in about ninety seconds.

“my entire family sat on my parents’ bed and just watched the video and looked at the comments.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

Everybody on the bed. Passing the phone. Reading strangers’ comments out loud. That is the memory, and it is a much better memory than any number attached to it. If I have a version of fame, that night was the first little bit of it, and it lasted about an evening before I went back to the gym.

I have been on TV a handful of times since. Jimmy Kimmel, TNT, ESPN, the Wizards broadcast. None of it hits like eight people crowded on a bed in Nebraska scrolling a comment section together.

Golf and Editing, the Two Nobody Guesses

Dennis asked what people might not know about me. My answer was golf and editing, which is not what anybody expects from a guy whose entire public identity is jumping at a rim. If I were not dunking, I would want to be a professional golfer. That is the alternate life, no hesitation.

I used to be a Jordan Spieth guy. I have slowly turned into a Scottie Scheffler fan, and I know picking the best player in the world is the least interesting answer possible. I picked him for a reason beyond the trophies.

“He’s got a good faith, and I think he’s a good role model.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

Dennis put it better than I did: does not get too high, does not get too low. That is the trait I am trying to steal. In dunking you can hit something in October that nobody sees and then hit something worse in November that gets ten million views. If your mood follows the numbers, you will be miserable. We also agreed to go play a round together, so that is on the calendar now.

The editing one surprises people more. I genuinely enjoy sitting in a timeline and building a clip. When Dennis asked why, this is what I said.

“It just allows you to be creative and tell a story in a way that most people might not see it as.”

Nathaniel “Hoopin Nate” Kenney

A dunk is about one second long. The clip around it decides whether anyone cares. Where you cut, what you leave in, whether you show the six misses before the make, whether you keep the sound of the rim or drop music over it. Those choices are the difference between a highlight and a story. Editing is the part of this where I get to build something instead of just performing it.

Hoopin Nate, But Soon Dunking Nate

Dennis closed the interview with a line I have thought about a lot since.

“Guys, Hoopin Nate, but soon Dunking Nate.”

Dennis Yu

He is teasing me, but he is also right about the direction. The name came from mini hoops. That is where I started and it is what most people know me for. The work now is full ten foot rims. At this camp I put down a 360 windmill on the ten, and a 9 foot Eastbay Hide and Seek, which is between the legs and behind the back on a nine foot rim. Dennis called it incredible. I said thank you and moved on, which is pretty much how I handle all of it.

The brand will catch up to the work eventually. That is fine. I would rather the dunks arrive first and the name follow.

Why This Two Minute Video Turned Into Six Articles

Dennis and Dylan Haugen, who runs Dunk Talk, taught a session at camp about how athletes get found on Google and in AI answers. They audited all 76 campers beforehand and put the results on a public leaderboard for the camp. I came out first on it, which was strange to see, because I had never once thought about whether Google understood what I do.

Then they offered to interview anybody who wanted it and turn that video into permanent pages. That is what this is. The whole method is written up in the camp repurposing system breakdown, and you are currently reading the proof that it works.

The same two minutes went five other places. Dennis wrote his own version of what a million jumps taught. Dylan covered the whole conversation in the Dunk Talk recap. Dunker Spotlight explained why the numbers are not the story. There is a version for athletes in any sport on why a highlight reel isn’t enough, and a marketing breakdown of the story behind the numbers.

A billion views is a stat somebody else counted. A million jumps is the part I actually did. If you only take one thing from any of this, take the boring one: keep going on the days nothing works.