When Shaquille O’Neal was in the NBA, he loved to dunk. With his height, he made it look easy. Including playoffs, he dropped a whopping 4,000 dunks over his 19-year career.
And while he didn’t dunk with the artistry of a Vince Carter or Julius Erving, Shaq admired those who could, even those who merely performed in their front yard or a local gymnasium.
In a joint venture with Atlanta-based TNT Sports and Authentic Brands, Shaq brought 24 dunkers from around the world to join his new official Dunkman league to compete for a $500,000 grand prize. The competition began last month and concludes with a championship round Tuesday at Overtime Elite Arena in Midtown, airing on both TNT and HBO Max.
Shooting the first major tournament in Atlanta was a no-brainer for Shaq.
“I’m here in Atlanta over at TNT. I got all my friends, got all my partners here,” said Shaq in a brief interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the court after the first episode aired last month. Shaq resides in McDonough and also hosts “Inside the NBA,” now on ESPN. “Great turnout. The fans had a good time. These guys did an unbelievable job putting on a show.”
“Dunkman” has tracked more than 300 million views of show clips across multiple social media outlets to date, a league spokesperson said, and some of the wildest dunks have been featured on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”
“It’s shareable digital content,” said Colin Smeeton, president of Authentic Studios, the entertainment and content production division of Authentic Brands Group. “But we also wanted a highly produced reality show.”
On top of that, he noted, “the players are all under contract with salaries, bonuses and prize money.”
Adam Lefkoe, Atlanta-based host of “Dunkman,” said holding the competition in July and August is a perfect time filler between the NBA season and the start of college and pro football: “The World Cup is over. NFL is in training camp. It’s really just baseball and WNBA.”
Credit: Courtesy of Authe
Credit: Courtesy of Authe
Dunk contests have been around for decades, but often featured celebrity judges who rated the dunks too generously. Lefkoe hosted a test run of “Dunkman” as a TNT limited series last fall that featured Shaq and his friends regularly providing grade inflation scores of 95 to 100.
“For this to be considered a serious sport,” Lefkoe said, “there has to be real Olympic scoring.”
As a result, the Dunkman league created a formal judging system featuring a panel of established dunkers scoring each dunk using seven specific criteria. The technical complexity of the dunk and how cleanly and accurately it’s performed cover 60% of the score. Other aspects the judges consider include creativity, power, vertical leap, completing the dunk on the first try and crowd reaction. Scores are scaled between 1 and 10.
The new system means easy 9s and 10s are no more. Only truly elite dunks score 9 or above. Successful dunks of at least medium difficulty typically land between 7 and 9. Athletes have to wait a minute after the dunk as the score is compiled, creating tension comparable to a figure skating or gymnastic competition.
The top score over the first four episodes was a 9.63, courtesy of legendary dunker Mac McClung. The dunk featured him spinning the equivalent of two full midair rotations (720 degrees) while slamming the ball into the net with authority. And that came after a 9.23 reverse dunk where he jumped over a car with two people stacked on top of each other.
“What I love about dunking is trying to surprise people and show them something they hopefully have never seen before,” said McClung in an interview with the AJC. McClung won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest three years in a row from 2023 to 2025 and is now the No. 1 seed in the Dunkman finals. He also recently signed with Basquet Girona of Liga ACB, Spain’s top professional league.
Shaq is an owner and official commissioner of the league. He chose not to be a judge and isn’t even on the panel of analysts, which includes social media influencer CashNasty and rotating NBA dunk legends like Carter and Draymond Green.
Instead, Shaq sits on the sideline like a gleeful fan, occasionally giving the dunkers high fives and hugs when they do well. During the fourth episode, he grabbed a basketball and did a dunk himself.
Lefkoe said high-end dunking is a skill set only a few basketball players possess: “NBA players have told me it takes a different kind of athlete to dunk. NBA players need to jump high and run fast. Dunkers need the ability to have a 45-inch vertical leap and do a windmill into a tomahawk. Most players don’t have that skill set.”
“Just because it’s a ball and a hoop doesn’t make it basketball,” Lefkoe added. “It’s its own thing. I wasn’t sure how it would go in our first episode, but the arena was jumping. We looked at each other and said, this could really work.” (Tickets are sold out for the final.)
Authentic Brands hired Chuck Millan, a well-known dunk trainer, to recruit players. Most are American but athletes from several other countries made the cut, including the “Dunk King of China” Dengxing Chen, the British “Royal Guard” Joel Henry and European dunk champ Vadym “Miller” Piddubchenko from Ukraine.
This has helped get the league attention in different countries, especially China. “We want a global league,” Smeeton said. “And these athletes are creators. It’s up to them to innovate, push the limits and find ways to wow the judges and the audience.”
Credit: Courtesy of Authentic Bran
Credit: Courtesy of Authentic Bran
Two of the 24 contestants have a hometown advantage.
Marietta native Jordan Southerland made it to the finals after landing what is called in the dunking world a “reverse inverter” during the live Aug. 11 episode. He ran and jumped, placed the ball between his legs, sailed past the basket, then landed the dunk from behind. He received a 9.38 score.
Avante Nichols, a McDonough High School graduate who now resides in Midtown, just missed the finals after a strong performance during the second episode.
Nichols told the AJC he grew up admiring Kobe Bryant and landed his first dunk at age 13. Over the years, he has developed specialties like a 360-degree windmill dunk and a dunk where he touches his toes in the air before bringing it home.
“This all fell into my hands,” Nichols said. “I just started posting dunking content a year ago. Now I’m in this league. They found me! I look left and right and see dunkers I’ve been watching for years. It’s crazy!”
Shaq, standing next to Round 1 winner and Little Elm, Texas resident Cam Hazzard on the court last month, said he wants to inspire viewers to become dunk masters: “What I hope is someone on their couch can see a 360 dunk like what Cam did and think they can do better.”
Throughout the year, the league plans to hold other dunk-related events and exhibitions in the United States and overseas to grow the league and find new talent.
Michael Lewis, a marketing professor at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, notes that Shaq’s innate popularity helped get the league off the ground and attract sponsors.
“It’s a fun diversion,” Lewis said, noting that the league can have true legs if it can build sustainable personalities and a strong “engagement machine, something where everything goes viral.”
IF YOU WATCH
“The Dunkman World Championship”
8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 25, live on TNT and HBO Max, simulcast on TNT Sports’ YouTube channel
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