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You have had a wonderfully functional basketball system in your backyard for years. You have spent hours out practicing by yourself, inviting your friends and family over, and teaching your children to play. Things were going great until one afternoon, your oldest child comes in and tells you that your beloved basketball system is no more. He and his friends did not do anything wrong. They were just out shooting hoops and the backboard, quite suddenly, shattered. Hey, it happens. Backboard cannot last forever. You got a long life out of the system. Time to hang up the sneaks for good, right? No!

Here is some help for you when researching a purchase for an arcade basketball game for your home use. First, we will look at manufacturers of these types of games. Lifetime Products, Spalding,and Escalade Sports are the largest manufacturers of these types of systems - there are many other smaller makers as well. Of these 3 main players in this market, Spalding and Escalade Sports offer more than 1 system. Each of these manufacturers offer very similar products in quality and play. However, certain minor differences between their product offerings may sway you one way or the other. We will look at each unique portion of their systems next.

Thee pole of the basketball system is an important part for obvious reasons; the most obvious reason being it holds the backboard and mounting hardware in position. However, there are also less obvious reasons that might escape some people. With most manufacturers, they will have a series of basketball goal offerings that will increase in quality and size. Thus, the poles of their systems will also differ in quality and size. Other manufacturers will offer basketball poles in only 1 shape, but differ in sizes. We will explore these options in this part of the basketball hoop purchasing guide.

Nearly every basketball hoop manufacturer has a height adjustment mechanism of some sort. These height adjustment mechanisms can be as simple as a turn crank, or has complicated as a pneumatic piston lift. This post will discuss the different options available from each of the major manufacturers.

As part of your purchasing research for a basketball system you will inevitably run into the question of what backboard material is best. This question is not lost on either low-end or high-end basketball system purchases. So, we will address this questions here. Different manufacturers building basketball backboards with different materials; many manufacturers build systems with with multiple types of backboard materials depending on the system. Typically, your options for backboard material will include polyethylene plastic (or similar plastic material), polycarbonate, acrylic, and tempered glass. These backboard materials have many different suppliers and purposes. We will look at them one at a time.

An ongoing question that we have not visited here on this blog before is the difference or the benefit between glass and acrylic backboards. We will try to give you a non-watered down or overly wordy, or sales intensive, explanation.

We have written about this before, but figured it might be useful for a refresher course in case people get hung up on how to replace the backboard on their Lifetime basketball system. You should always verify compatibility of the backboard you are interested in before ordering the product.

https://www.competitiveedgeproducts.com/Lifetime-91009-Portable-Outdoor-Sports-Game-Tetherball-System_p_3303.html

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Lifetime just informed us that the 90013 has been discontinued and is no longer in stock. This means, the closest product available in this price range to the 90013 is the 54-inch glass backboard in-ground basketball system.

Lifetime Products has recently added several new models to their basketball hoop line up.

After about 6 months of ownership, I figured I should give an update of this system and how it has worked out for my family. First off, my new high score on this system 170. From speaking with a couple of people who work at Lifetime Products, they know of one of their employees that claims to have scored higher than 200. I am skeptical of that; though, I must say that the time I scored 170 I still had room for improvement. Back to the topic at hand, I wanted to share some observations of this system. I figured I would talk about the basketballs, the frame of the Double Shot, and the playability.

When purchasing a basketball system it is important to know the difference between height adjustment mechanisms. Some height adjustments are very difficult and inconvenient to maneuver and others are very effortless. Some adjustment mechanisms last longer than others and some are more prone to breakage. The adjustment mechanism made by the Lifetime Products Brand vary significantly. This article will explain the different adjustment mechanisms in order of how convenient it is to adjust it.

We often get asked questions about which replacement basketball backboards go with which basketball systems. Hopefully this will be a helpful guide for you while you search.