the.com/dunk
A layup with a thesis statement.
means To slam a basketball down through the hoop with the hand, or more generally, to plunge something forcefully into a liquid or situation.
from Traces to the Pennsylvania Dutch 'dunke,' meaning to dip, itself from German 'tunken' (to dip or soak) — the word that gave us dunking a donut in coffee long before it meant throwing one down through a hoop. The basketball sense borrowed the same mental image: something being forced down and in, decisively.
- origin
- from dunking a donut, motion coined it
- first dominance
- banned in NCAA 1967-1976, blamed on Kareem
- max hangtime
- roughly half a second, feels longer on SportsCenter
- height myth
- shortest dunker officially 5'5, Spud Webb