PORTER “WHAT’S GRAVITY?” MABERRY

   Porter Maberry, now officially “The Dunk King” after recently winning the $100,000 TNT Reality TV competition, feels at home at Gus Macker tournaments.

  “That’s where it all started, in Mount Pleasant in 2010, I won my first dunk contest,” said the 5-foot-5 leaper from Grand Rapids who defies gravity and seemingly reality with his 52-inch vertical rise to the rim.

  “I’ve been playing Mackers since forever. The stuff I’m doing now all over the place, back home in Mackers is where it all began.”

  Maberry, who has recently been making special appearances for the Grand Rapids Macker Tournament before heading to London for a special dunk show, was a standout player in high school at Ottawa Hills.

  “I started and I can play the game, but I wasn’t dunking then” he said. “I could hit the backboard with my hand as a freshman when I was like 5-2, and could grab the rim as a sophomore but had a hard time getting the ball and the jumping all together for a dunk.

  “That about a year after high school, after I went to Grand Rapids Community College for a year and  worked loading and unloading furniture from trucks at Steelcase,  I caught a tip dunk at the park and I had it. I could dunk. I matured. I got stronger. I don’t really know.”

  He kept on dunking, getting more creative, and developed the skills that allowed him to jump over the 7-foot-2 Shaquille O’Neal in one of his dunks for TNT.

  First, however he was talked about by Macker crowds. In South Haven in 2012 video of him hit the internet and ESPN among others called. A video was put together by a national company of him doing several dunks in various places, including Macker contests, and it had one million hits in one night. Then along came a LeBron James commercial for Samsung phones. LeBron, in the commercial, spies a video on his phone of Maberry rising for a spectacular dunk. He is impressed and vows to send the YouTube video out. That same video has been viewed by millions.

  “The recognition from that was amazing,” Porter said. “Like now, since I won the Dunk King, it has been crazy, all kinds of people hitting me up, but great, too.”

  Last year at Ludington he went over a guy on a motorcycle holding the ball above his head. He floated. He finished. It was vintage Parker for the dunk. Video of that went viral as well.

  “I feel blessed because I’ve been able to turn dunking into a career,” said the 26-year-old father of a five-month-old daughter (Khali) and a five-year-old daughter (Destinee) who is engaged to Mary Kievit.

  “It’s crazy that I’m getting to do something I love, basketball. Gus Macker and everybody supported me from the start, gave me competitions and now I can do this to provide for my family. I really appreciate those people who were there when it all started.”

  Scott McNeal, a.k.a. Gus Macker, said Porter has been amazing and a Macker favorite since he first dunked in the contests that are part of virtually every Macker tournament.

  “He’s pretty short, and he just floats up and his dunks seem incredible,” he said. “On top of that, he’s a great guy who has really worked to be great at dunking. We really like having him around Mackers because he causes so much excitement and treats everybody so well. He’s become a Macker legend and we love it when a nice guy makes it big.”