Breaking the Backboard

[USAF_AMMO]

It has been many years since a NBA player had broken a backboard in a game. Do you think that this is due to the players, rules, or improved technology?

Who would be the player in the league most likely to break a backboard today?

[iDunk]

Who was the last player to break the backboard?

Shaw breaking the whole thing down doesn't count.

[NBA4EVER]

you can't break the backboard anymore. its pretty much impossible for an NBA Player to even bring down the hoop. If anyone here watched Sports Science they got Amare Stoudemire to try to break down the hoop. He took like 50 tries and he couldn't do it. he would hang on the hoop and use all the force he had to break it down but he couldn't do it.

Then they brought out a piano and dropped it while it was attached to the hoop and that didnt even break the backboard. It brought down the hoop but the backboard was not broken. So ya it is pretty hard to bring down this new basketball hoop.


Amare Stoudemire Sports Science

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-GWvs0CLaU

[STelfair31]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX7TSWStfVs

what's the difference between backboard then^^ and now???

only thing I can think of is the snap back rims..

[AznBBoyX]

There is an extra layer of material in the backboard itself that absorbs impact to prevent the glass from shattering like the Darryl Dawkins dunk.

[Rake2204]

I am no physicist but it is my belief that the improved technology (in terms of breakaway rims and the ability for the backboard and entire basket stanchion to absorb and distrubute force exuded) has been the primary reason a backboard has not been broken in the NBA for what may be at least 15 years.

The NBA has constantly been updating their basket design through time, trying to limit the amount of delays through equipment failure. Some people suggest Darryl Dawkins may have sped up the search for a stronger basket in the 70's and 80's (eventually yielding the breakaway rim) and other people may argue that the arrival of Shaquille O'Neal and his folding of one stanchion (@ Phoenix) and snapping of another (@ New Jersey) accelerated the move for even stronger NBA hoops and supports in the 90's. I think there's a little truth there in both regards.

The NBA's current basket technology appears to be built to last and is uniform to every NBA ballclub. Shattered backboards still occasionally occur in the college and high school levels in part because each school does not use an NBA-"level" backboard and support system. Oftentimes high schools still make due with basket systems over 20 years old.

I must say, shattered backboards are one of my favorite parts of the game and I miss the possibility of them occuring on the pro level. The last shattered backboard in the NBA I can recall was at the hands of New Jersey Nets' forward Chris Morris, somewhere between 1992 and 1994. There have been a couple of moments in the last ten years where O'Neal looked as if he could do damage to a bucket if he were to hang for another second or two. Alas, he always lets go of the rim before we are able to find out.

I always felt a real key to shattering a backboard (aside being at least 6'10'' 270) was to take off of one foot from farther away than normal and dunking with two hands. This seemed to breakaway the rim with the force of one's body weight dropping downward rather than a distributed amount of weight being spread through two arms simply pulling on the rim. Clearly there are other strategies, but Kevin Love, Tractor Traylor, and Darvin Ham (two foot take-off, but still from a little further out than normal) would be the poster children for this particular outlet.

[Orlando Magic]

Uh, the goals were changed for Shaq. There is no doubt about that.

Any lol @ that TV show using Amare for trying to break the backboard. You've got to give Shaq a call. Not Amare. Dwight at worst, but Amare? Really?

[NBA4EVER]

Uh, the goals were changed for Shaq. There is no doubt about that.

Any lol @ that TV show using Amare for trying to break the backboard. You've got to give Shaq a call. Not Amare. Dwight at worst, but Amare? Really?

amare may not be the heaviest big man but he can sure throw it down really hard. but i would say if anyone could break a backboard in today's game it would be dwight howard

[Orlando Magic]

amare may not be the heaviest big man but he can sure throw it down really hard. but i would say if anyone could break a backboard in today's game it would be dwight howard

No, it would be Shaq. Shaq is still the most powerful player in the league. He can literally make the entire basket shake quite a bit. Dwight can too, but not as much.

[NBA4EVER]

No, it would be Shaq. Shaq is still the most powerful player in the league. He can literally make the entire basket shake quite a bit. Dwight can too, but not as much.

shaq is big, dwight is strong

[32jazz]

Uh, the goals were changed for Shaq. There is no doubt about that.

Any lol @ that TV show using Amare for trying to break the backboard. You've got to give Shaq a call. Not Amare. Dwight at worst, but Amare? Really?

uh, uh, the goals were changed to 'breakaway rims' waaay before Shaq ever played organized ball really. They were being used in college in the 70's & the NBA went to them after Daryl 'Chocolate Thunder' Dawkins broke two backboards in a single season in 79/80.

There was basketball before 80's/90's. Study your history.


Other than the occasional 'defective' backboards it will rarely happen again.

[smith]

...>D, get me two big men on a put back dunk.

[Slam13]

No, it would be Shaq. Shaq is still the most powerful player in the league. He can literally make the entire basket shake quite a bit. Dwight can too, but not as much.

Dwight just rocked the shot clock down a few games ago.

[HylianNightmare]

i guess we will have to settle for dwight bringing down shot clocks

[RainierBeachPoet]

uh, uh, the goals were changed to 'breakaway rims' waaay before Shaq ever played organized ball really. They were being used in college in the 70's & the NBA went to them after Daryl 'Chocolate Thunder' Dawkins broke two backboards in a single season in 79/80.

There was basketball before 80's/90's. Study your history.


Other than the occasional 'defective' backboards it will rarely happen again.

there was an interesting article regarding the guy who invented the rim in 1975 but through circumstance, the patent was given to another. the inventor, chuck randall, who was a hoops coach at western washington univ receives a royalty check of $12 ever few months!!

"Chuck Randall got the publicity," Dittrich said matter of factly. "Arthur Ehrat and I got the patent and the money."


Randall details his rim involvement and fleecing on multiple levels in his recently released autobiography, "My Impossible Dream," co-authored with Barbara Kindness.


He describes how a company named "Toss-Back" copied his rim known as the "Slam Dunk" and tried to undercut him. He mentions how a business partner, John Simonseth, quit sending him royalty checks. Randall claims an attorney hired to retrieve those royalties stole $7,297.18 from him. A deeply religious man, he shrugs at his misfortune.

http://wwuvikings.cstv.com/sports/m-...070908aaa.html