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I remember your explanation and I still don't know for sure how much is demanded aerobically and how much is anaerobically in a typical game.

The basketball numbers that I am using are 60/20/20 alactic, lactic, aerobic.  These are from a pretty classic SSC book and I believe the numbers were arrived at using college basketball players who played continuous full court basketball (a scrimmage) wearing monitors.  Play stopped for out of bounds, fouls, etc, BUT there were no time outs, no time on the bench, no quarter-time, etc, so if anything an actual game is less aerobically demanding.  Pick up basketball is probably even less at least here where players argue and re-check the ball constantly.   

I have my doubts, because i struggle to dunk in games even when it become effortless for me to dunk in practice. It could be like you explained that you need the right groove and runup and since in games you're not given what you want but rather have to work with the space available to you, i'm not able to hit my usual positions to do it properly? I can buy that in principle. But i was dunking routinely around the rim from all angles then. That's why i'm pinpointing my lack of aerobic fitness because that could be a possible weak point.

I get that you think that someone who dunks from all angles should perhaps struggle less to dunk in games.  Even if you don't buy my explanation, you are pinpointing it on something that cannot be the reason!   You also have small biceps... but why not pinpoint your lack of in-game dunking on your weak biceps?   Aerobic fitness is NOT the reason why you struggle to dunk in games!  You have to think about basic physiology.   Having a well conditioned aerobic energy system will allow you to do sub-max (FAR submax) work continuously.   A more fit aerobic system will be able to fuel a higher difficultly of work but nothing close to dunking.   You can argue about the aerobic/anaerobic %'s in basketball but if you use a sport where the numbers are more exact you can see just how poor the aerobic system as far as maximal effort.   No matter how fit you are the aerobic system kicks in at around 30s of sustained work.   Not surprisingly, sprint speed drops off precipitously after 30s.   Usain Bolt can run 300m in 30.9 seconds (an average of about 10.3 seconds per 100m).   His best 400m time is 45.5 seconds.    The time required to add that last 100m is 14 seconds!   Someone with less aerobic fitness might run with even worse ratios... say 15-16 seconds.  The GOAT at the 400m (Michael Johnson) could run his 400m only 13 seconds worse than his best 300m.   That's the aerobic system of the greatest long sprinter in history.... And his added time over 100m is what you would expect out of a high school girl.... 

The point is that the aerobic system is a low intensity system.   Having aerobic fitness will help you as a basketball player because you will be able to jog up and down the court without being the last one down.  But when you go to dunk you better have the ATP ready to fire those non-oxidatitive fibers.   That ATP is refilled during extremely low intensity periods, eg standing around on the court... possibly walking.   You can take the fittest man in the world and if you have him run two miles at a pace that challenged him and then ask him to jump as high as possible 10 steps before he crosses the line.... he will struggle as much as you.   

Even if you're right about basketball being mainly anaerobic, i think my aerobic ability is far below average to the point it will drastically affect my performance on the court.  I don't think i would do well in any meaningful test (eg the one LBSS suggested or the ones you have offered). I think you're perhaps under-estimating my lack of fitness. I'm prob one of the least fittest members of this site, including raptor who has chronic problems with fitness. For me it's been from an intentional neglect to focus on pushing my lifts up which are slowly coming around to where i'd like them. In the summer when I was lean, i dont know if i was actually fit, or it was just easier to move around being so light.

I'm not doubting that your in absolutely terrible shape!! ( Although I do call BS on you being 25% bodyfat - being able to dunk at 25% bf even at your height would be a major accomplishment ).   I'm also not arguing that your horrible aerobic fitness doesn't detract from your ability to play good team basketball.  If there is a long period in the game without a dead-ball and you find yourself quickly becoming the last one back on offense/defense because your walking while everyone else is jogging... Then your lack of aerobic fitness is hurting the team.   My argument is that your examples don't illustrate a lack of aerobic fitness (not being able to play good on-ball defense, not rising on your jump-shot and not being able to get in game dunks because all those examples suggest a lack of anaerobic conditioning, a lack of mechanical proficiency, and the unfortunate effect of specialization***.) 

However, despite the fact that aerobic fitness may be a weak point in your game.... I still don't suggest that use sustained cardio as the means to bring it up.   Sprint intervals CAN be useful for someone like you because they will provide a lot of bang for the buck as far as bodyfat goes AND there is something psychological about getting used to sprinting 60-100m repeatedly that makes a basketball court seem REALLY short.    However, I still recommend you improve the bulk of your fitness with more basketball specificity.   

The best argument I can give you for this is anecdotal...   The year after college I didn't run track at all but I did play a lot of basketball.... we played pickup ball 4-5 times a week and would play upwards of 8 games on a good day.  I was in amazing basketball shape and could dunk the ball off a drop step...  I still rarely dunked in games unless it was a put back or a truly clear fast-break because dunking in games is HARD... but I digress....    The point was that I was one of the fastest and fittest guys on a court shared by a lot of high-level basketball players.   Simply from playing basketball a lot and having an athletic background.   Years later I didn't have a good pickup basketball resource and got back into running and at the seasons end I was in pretty decent track shape and pretty good aerobic shape (I'm talking 50 second quarter mile, 2:10 in the 800m, and the ability to run a 5 min mile - levels that are probably above where you are shooting for).   However, when I played a game in a summer league my friend had organized I was gassed pretty quickly.  Sure, I was still doing better than the weekend warrior's who were in terrible shape.  But my basketball fitness wasn't anywhere near the level it was at when I actually played a lot of basketball.   Basketball fitness is really specific.  While I stand by the fact that it's primarily anaerobic it's also just simply unique.   There really is not substitute to playing basketball for you.... if you don't have a good resource to pickup or league basketball.... Then I would stick with the basketball drill I gave you AND others that you can make up.   They won't be as good as playing but they will be a close second.  Keep it simple and keep in measurable.   Another good one: how many times can you dunk in 2 minutes given that you have to dunk on alternating hoops?   That will help your in game dunks way more than any cardio...

I am glad you made this point because it's something i've noticed before. I find in traffic it's harder to dip down into a jump (even a quarter one) for a SVJ or RVJ off a few steps. I wonder if there is benefit in training partial exercises like heavy quarter squats to improve ones ability to jump with a less knee flexion. It would be more useful to me for dunking in games..

Sorry, like LBSS said... GPP man.  Full and quarter squats are GPP.  Neither is executed at anything near the speed of a jump and neither involves similar mechanics.    You have made some good strides in your athleticism and used squats... Don't go overboard now and think that you can weight lift yourself to gains in every reactive motion....    Your better off learning to dunk off different plants.   Better to analyze your jump and find out how to get better at in game dunks.   My problem with in-game dunks was always that my dunks were restricted to one footed dunks or put back dunks because although I jump well off two feet I use a left right plant which would be great if I am left handed (or could jump high enough to do a 360) but I am not.   

***One last point about specialization.   You should not underestimate the unfortunate lack of carry over that happens when you become a specialist.   You have put a lot of work into your squat...  If you take someone who hardly squats and he has similar bw to squat ratios... He will almost always be faster/stronger/etc.    Getting good at something unfortunately means it starts to provide less aid in similar movements.  You are now a specialized squatter and jumper.   So your 34 inch jump (or whatever your PR is) will translate to a lot less when you have to jump at an odd angle, weird plant , in traffic, or simply without the mental queuing that you have learned to do before you jump in practice... Your old 25 inch jump translated a lot better because you hadn't yet reached a level of specialization...   The guy who had trained his vertical from 15 to 25 inches probably saw your 25 inch jump and wondered why he couldn't use his 25 inch jump to rise up on his shot, block shots, etc.   It's an unfortunate thing that happens when we get really good at something..... but hey it's because you have finally gotten some athleticism !

and all that's kind of secondary to the feeling i had coming out of college that i'd pretty much coasted in life up to that point. i'm white, a dude, upper middle class (not rich by US standards but very rich compared to the rest of the world), good-looking, straight, reasonably intelligent and curious and personable, i handle stressful situations like deadlines very well. life is easy for me, people very much like me found themselves in control in europe hundreds of years ago and have set up european societies to favor ourselves over many centuries. so graduating from college didn't really feel like an achievement, it felt inevitable, just something that i did because good god why wouldn't i? i got honors in college but didn't feel like i'd worked for them. i rarely (not never, but rarely) put myself out there, risked failure by working as hard as i could on something. if i could get A- or B+ results without trying, why go balls out? this is a bullshit mentality, it comes from a place of insecurity and fear: if i dig deep and put everything into something and fail to ace it, then i'm really not good enough. if i don't try that hard and get merely average or above average results, well then i could always tell myself, "i could do better if i wanted to." bullshit. my gf recently studied extremely hard for weeks for a test that mattered a lot to her, and she didn't do as well as she needed to to get the grade she deserved for the course overall. partly she got fucked over by whoever wrote the test, but bottom line is she didn't reach the mark she wanted to reach. but she was brave in her studying, she put herself in a position where her ego could really suffer if she didn't do as well as she wanted.

that's where wanting to dunk comes from. for all my gifts, i am not a "natural athlete." my body looks athletic and i'm coordinated but i'm in the fat part of the bell curve in most measures of "athleticism." i'm not terribly slow but i'm not fast, i'm sort of quick but not gonna juke anyone out of their shoes, and when i first started trying to jump higher nearly four years ago, i could just barely touch the rim off a run up. people generally laugh when i tell them that i want to dunk: what, this sub-6' white guy? lololololol. for all my throat clearing with entropy and others about what "athleticism" really means, dunking seemed to me a pretty neat and wonderful expression of power, grace, and speed. so i decided to go for it. and even though i'm not there yet, even though i've only gained 6" in that time on my best days, even though i spent the first 9-10 months of this year running in place like a moron and progressing on nothing, it feels good to be on this pursuit, trying hard to reach a difficult goal, however silly or pointless. 

Great post.  Don't forget that even the journey has kept you from become the fat slob we are supposed to become after college athletics.  Challenge yourself in some way so that failure is not inevitable (that makes you delusional) but definitely possible.... really one of the hardest things for people to do.

all extremely valid points, but entropy is looking for a standardized test of his "fitness." this is a guy who likes charts. obviously, the only real test of fitness is playing the sport. no one disputes this. but as you said yourself, whether accidentally or not the beep test correlates with specific fitness pretty well. i'd also point out that the beep test involves a lot of accelerations and decelerations, even if submax, which is fatiguing in a different way than straight-line running and closer to what you actually do during a game*. it's not something he should use to train but if he wants a measuring stick outside of playing the game, he could do worse.

*not the same! at all! i know!

Fair enough... although I maintain that a stopwatch and a friend to time how long he takes to cover three court or free throw line to free throw lines will prove just as reliable a test of basketball fitness.  An even less horrible test....  Three line-to-line sprints.  Rest 30 seconds.  Repeat.  Rest 30 seconds, repeat.  Add up the 3 times and make that a measure of fitness.  It's not complicated and doesn't use beeps but it's a better measure of fitness by a long shot. 

I agree. They're both considered way more skilled than athletic. I don't think Steve Nash can even dunk and he's around 6'2''

Beep test probably isn't the most meaningful test.... but neither athlete is "unathletic".   Steve Nash is more like 6'0 and while I wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't dunk now (he can barely move he is so injured) he could routinely catch two handed lob in college.  If he was on the forum and he trained for vertical jump he would be one of the better athletes on here... not out of this world but he would be able to do all the dunks I can do.   He isn't a slouch by any means.   While taller the "high-flying" NBA players (Kenyon Martin, etc) simply get way too much credit as elite leapers ( all would get put to shame but a triple jumper or high jumper ) the smaller little guys who play below the rim really get disrespected.  JJ Barea can dunk and is seriously like 5'9 at the most... but like Steve Nash he plays below the rim so you would never know.  It's simply not advantageous for really small guys to jump in 99% of situations... even Allen Iverson wised up and stopped dunking pretty early in his career.   

As far as Kevin Love.... You have to respect that height IS athleticism.   It's useful, it translate's to all sports, and it's not trainable so it's really the most athletic trait there is!  Given that Love is probably pretty strong and is really tall he is a great athlete.  Both Love and Nash are great shooters (Nash really the best of all time) which of course makes you faster as far as basketball is concerned.... but it still doesn't do ALL the work for you.   Everyone in the nba is an athlete.   

 Perhaps the greatest proof that Steve Nash isn't all skill no athleticism is the fact that he is a shell of the player he once was now that he REALLY has no athleticism!   At his peak his main move was pick and roll; he would come off the pick and due to his quick release (and IMO the best shot ever ) he had to be guarded extremely tight by the switch or the guy fighting through.... Given that the defender had to respect his shot to such a ridiculous degree he was more than athletic enough to go right past his man and cause havoc.  With his age and injuries he doesn't have the athleticism to do this which really hurts his game.   As far as his inability to play defense... It was not a lack of quickness or leaping ability that made him a bad defender but really a matter of size.  I was at a game last year where Dwayne Wade just abused him in the post.   I don't care what they are listed at but Nash seriously looks 5'' shorter and 60 pounds lighter than Wade.  In the NBA help defense is so good that poor on-ball defending isn't as bad as a strength-size mismatch....  That said... I guess Steve Nash is a poor athlete as far as strength...  He really just isn't strong enough to defend ( a strong reason why you can argue that John Stockton was a better player )...   But while he isn't strong the myth that he is pretty much that slow non-leaping highly skilled white guy.... that is false.   

Also, the skill/athleticism debate is silly.  Does Entropy really think that shooting is all practice and skill?   We could all practice shooting for the rest of our lives but that doesn't mean we could be the shooter that Steve Nash is.  Sure, it's more practicable at the beginning (everyone starts out a bad shooter if they have never played basketball) because it's a foreign movement....    But same with playing the piano... however some people become world class pianists and some don't and it isn't simply how much you practice.   The best shooters in the world practice a lot AND have the genetics to become as good as they are.... that's why shooting is athleticism as well. 

If you guys are right (and i don't know if you are or not) then i shud be around the same amount of lean-ness of 12% in the low 80s. But i dont think i've quite gained 5kg of muscle. Obviously I haven't. I'd be lucky if i've gained even a kilo of contractile muscle tissue. lean mass sure, but that's just water, 3g of water for every gram of fat etc. I'm super curious to see how my cut will go.

3g of water for every gram of fat???   There is little relationship between water weight and fat.  Glycogen carries water, fat is hydrophobic, that's why it's such an efficient energy source.

Contractile muscle tissue?  Why are you making things so complicated?  Are you afraid that you are gaining sensory muscle spindle only?   Of course a gain in muscle weight doesn't occur only at the sarcomere... but approximations are necessary to stay sane... use them.   

I strongly agree for the most part that people way overestimate how much muscle they have gained when they go on a dirty bulk.  But... you are one of the few people who is going the other way.   I'm confident that you have gained more than a kilo in muscle... but who really cares?  Again remember your main goal as an athlete.   You want to be better.  You were semi-lean and got better athletic performance but your strength was plateauing and you decided to allow yourself to become less lean in order to chase down your goal of squatting X kilos (and more importantly getting stronger legs).  When you hit that goal you will do like any sensible power athlete and try and lean down whilst preserving strength.   If you can lean back down to your previous weight without losing strength... Well then I guess you haven't gained any muscle.   But who cares!  Your performance will be maximized at this level.   If you lean down to a level of 5kg above your previous weight.... Then you essentially gained 5kg of muscle.  If you only gained 3kg of muscle and 2kg are actually fat that provides you the leverage to be that strong.... It doesn't really matter...  If the weight is necessary for the strength, it's strength-dependent weight.  The goal is always to gain as little of this as possible so you don't become yo-yo strong.  This is IMO the biggest danger of a dirty bulk.  Not the added fat (discipline can shed that)... but the yo-yo affect of strength and weight. 

Wow, what crazy times... 6AM for sprints? That's insane for my lifestyle.

I do strength training at 22 o'clock, up to 23:30 or so, because at that time the gym is emptier and I don't have to split my time with 30 people in a small gym.

Aren't you the one who said adapting to jet lag is as simple as going to sleep a few hours earlier?   I imagine the gym is pretty empty early too...

You have to remember that sprinters in the US are mostly in Florida and California, so 6am is not freezing cold or super dark most of the year.   

As far as when you choose to train there isn't much convincing research that it matters THAT much... but the research that does exist suggests your sleep is likely more efficient spending less time sleeping when it's light out.  Anecdotally this is something a lot of people have noticed.  Going to bed at 3am and getting to bed up at 9am seems to be a lot more difficult than going to bed at 12am and getting up at 6am despite the fact that both give you six hours.   

What about practicing max effort jumping like how sprinters practice their sprints. If you can do two sessions a day, wouldn't max effort jumping in morning and weightlifting at night be better than combining them into one workout?

There is no universal rule as to how sprinters practice their sprints.  Some sprinters have even squatted before sprinting.  But that's neither here no there.   You are either squatting for potentiation/specific resistance or you are lifting as an accessory.

1)  If you are lifting as an accessory to your event (jumping or sprinting) then it should be done after jumping/sprinting so it doesn't interfere with the workout.   As to whether it's best to do it in the evening or not depends on the individual.   Weightlifting at night will allow for some recovery before lifting which may be desired.... but if you lift at say 8pm then it means that when the athlete gets to the track again at 6am he has had only 10 hours to recovery from lifting AND it might compromise sleep.   IMO the ideal schedule would be 6am track, 8am - small protein meal and 30 min rest, 9am weightlifting, 5pm easy tempo/mobility/massage/ice, 10pm sleep.    But certainly the most important thing is that you keep the accessory work after track/bounding.    Weightlifting as accessory work could involve deadlifts, GHRS, back extensions, volume squatting, etc. 

2) If you are lifting for potentiation then lifting can and should be done before the activity.  Squatting is not a great potention exercise for sprinters but it can be used for standing vertical jumps.   A single heavy deadlift can be used as potention for olympic lifters.   Sprinters use resisted running for potenetation/specific resistance.   Sprinters don 't perform heavy sled drags after they have done a hard track session, they perform them before because they make the sprinter adapt to a load and actually help mechanics.   Same truth for squatting and jumping.   I suppose if jumping were a sport training could consist of max singles up to 95%, then vertical jump training, then accessory work.