There are a hundred different adjustable basketball hoops on the market today, each with their own little features and drawbacks. In fact it’s pretty difficult to figure out which one to buy. It took me a little bit too but having used a bunch of them in the past, I knew what I was looking for. Mainly it had to be:
- Easy to adjust, this is the most important thing
- Easy to move and won’t fall over easily
- Last through some heavy use
That’s when I found it, the Lifetime basketball goal.
Enter the Lifetime Adjustable Portable Basketball Hoop
This is actually my second Lifetime hoop, the first one I got was the cheapest one they had available. I wouldn’t recommend that one, it was super hard to adjust the height, I just got it for daycare so the kids would have a goal to shoot on during the summer (so I didn’t have to care about adjusting the height everyday on it). This is the actual goal I bought, you can see it through my Amazon affiliate link:
Lifetime 90585 Portable Basketball System, 48 Inch Polycarbonate Shatterproof Backboard – Gray
This one though I knew what I was looking for. I needed a goal where I could adjust it from 8ft to 10ft very easily, so my 8 year old could shoot on the 8ft goal and then I could immediately raise it back up to 10ft for my 11 year old. This year it will be used mostly between 9ft and 10ft, now that my 8 year old is moving up to 9ft goals.
So this last year I used it mainly for my 8 year old to shoot around on. He shot over 5000 shots on it this year for the shot contest with no durability issues, so you know the quality is decent. A lot of goals would start falling apart with that many shots on it. No problems at all yet.
We also use it as a second 10ft basketball goal when playing full court in my shed. It works really well for that, although it’s a little hard to do layups on because you run into the base if you go under the basket. My other goal is a wall mounted Goalsetter Basketball goal.
Moving it around
If you don’t have any weight in the base, it will fall over immediately, so keep that in mind. Some goals have a little weight in the back built it so it’s at least stable when standing up but not this one, this one requires water/sand in the base or something heavy laying on the back. I put a big box of nails and a nail gun on the back of mine just to hold it down.
It’s pretty easy to move once the weight is off but you’ll want to have two people around to do it. The main reason is because the second you move that weight off it will start to tilt forward. If you’re not in front of it when that happens, it will hit the ground pretty hard. Some coordination is needed in order to move it.
I actually have a video review of the goal here:
