Basketball Hoop Reviews

Archives for September 2012

Fisher-Price I Can Play Basketball

By

Pros

Polycarbonate backboard, breakaway rim, height adjustment, portable, small footprint, easy assembly, customer service

Cons

Stability, value, durability

Overall Rating


The Fisher Price, I can play basketball hoop system is a Mini system designed for children. It is mostly used indoors, but can be taken outside for short periods of time. It adjusts from 3 feet to 4 feet to 5 feet and 6 feet at its height. The base is sturdy and you can even add sand or water when playing outside. The system comes with a small basketball. Personally, my kids play with this system all of the time and love it.

What To Like

  • Easy assembly. Piece of Cake.
  • Durable. It is built well. Sturdy and durable.

What Not To Like

  • ‘Not made of recycled plastic’ Doesn’t bother me at all, but it bothered someone.
  • Not much else. There are some nit-picky reviews like that it is a ‘pain to put together’ and they ‘wish it would have come with two basketballs.’ But generally, the consensus is that this is the mini hoop to buy for young children.

Reviews from Around the Web

Amazon.com: Almost 5 Stars – ‘It’s big, solid, well-build and will last a long time’

Summary

Not much criticism on this mini hoop system for children. It’s actually a great toy for younger children. Definitely Highly Recommended. Cheap at only $55.00

Orders processed Through Amazon.com:

SKLZ Pro Mini Basketball Hoop

By

Pros

Polycarbonate backboard, breakaway rim, height adjustment, portable, small footprint, easy assembly, customer service

Cons

Stability, value, durability

Overall Rating


The SKLZ Pro Mini Basketball Hoop is an Indoor basketball hoop thatis specifically designed to mount over a door or a wall. The foam pad on the sides is for protection and safety. This is rated the #1 mini hoop for indoor use, but it has its drawbacks. If you are looking for a hoop that your kids will enjoy the most, you may be better off with the Fisher Price, I can play basketball hoop. However, if you are specifically looking for a door mounted hoop, or something you can take to the office, this is a great choice.

What To Like

  • Sturdy For a mini basketball hoop, this system is very sturdy.
  • Breakaway rim. Although mini and not meant to be hung onto, it is a breakaway system and will last even through rough play.
  • What Not To Like
  • The Ball. It comes with a cheap plastic ball that will need to be replaced by a more expensive version.
  • Over the Door Hanger. It may be too thick for some doors and the doors won’t close properly.
  • Backboard. After time, the backboards tend to break.
  • Noisy. The backboard will clank against the door and some say they don’t like the noise

Reviews from Around the Web

Amazon.com: Almost 5 Stars – ‘Amazing Mini Hoop System….’

Amazon.com: 4 Stars – ‘Better than any other Mini Hoop’

Video

Summary

Ok, as you can see there are a lot of criticisms on this page about this mini hoop. We own this hoop and the kids love it. However, it seems that the kids play more with the Fisher Price Mini hoop than they do with this one. It is still the best Mini Hoop only rim/backboard system out there.

Orders processed Through Amazon.com

Pro Dunk Hoops

By

Pros

Durable, easy to install. A decent in-ground hoop system at a reasonable price.

Cons

This is the “Silver” model of the Pro Dunk series. There are four models, Diamond – Platinum – Gold – Silver. The silver system is the cheapest and least impressive of the models. Still a great hoop for this price.

Overall Rating


Buy Now

 

Pro Dunk Basketball hoop systems have been around for a while and appear to be a consumer favorite.  If you go to their website, they have well over 1000 reviewed basketball hoops. Not knowing much about the Pro Dunk Hoops, I contacted their team to learn more.  My first impression is that they have a friendly crew. I learned that they pride themselves on their reviews.  It would be nice to have some more reviews start showing up on Amazon, but for now, there are a lot of reviews to comb through on their website.

Upon further inspection, it looks like they control almost all of their own reviews. So, all of their reviews on their website could easily be falsified, as they can’t be verified using a third party reviewing system, such as ShopperApproved, TrustPilot, or Revoo. And being the fact that there is no other retailer of Pro Dunk Hoops, other than the manufacturer, you can see how many of their reviews could be falsified.

I also learned that they have four hoops that they sell through Amazon. I was provided a link for all of them.

Pro Dunk Silver

Pro Dunk Diamond

 

At one point, they had actually removed the Pro Dunk Gold from their Amazon list of products. This was presumably due to the fact that they received some poor reviews specifically talking about the rusting of the basketball goals.

And we’ve also seen concerning reviews about rusting, like these.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3V8OV0EU6KC4T/

http://www.yelp.com/biz/pro-dunk-hoops-tomball

And on their Facebook page

rusting

If you go to their website and look at their goals, it seems that as you go up in price and features, the average reviews get incrementally better. Seems a bit convenient. Now, we all know that, when left to the free market, we would be extremely lucky to have that type of outcome. What is more likely is that they made false reviews to bump up their “average review” for that specific model.

It would also appear the company has made up locations on Google Maps to try and show up for local searches.

pro-dunk-maps

What To Like

  • Barbarian-72-Inch-Adjustable-Glass-SystemThe Look. Sitting in your driveway, the silver Pro Dunk Hoop looks good.
  • Wide Backboard Very thick and sturdy to provide great stability for the hoop.
  • Crank System The Hoop lowers to 5 feet for small children. This is lower than most other basketball hoop systems. We didn’t love the crank handle though. Didn’t hate it, just didn’t love it. Prefer the patented lower/raising system of the Mammoth hoops.  The lowering of below 5 feet is a double edged sword, fun for kids, but also dangerous, as it is not approved by the ASTM and can be dangerous for young players.

What Not To Like

  • If you are looking for a professional grade system, you should go with the something more reputable, like a Goalrilla.
  • Company’s review tactics seem to be sketchy.
  • Goal’s overhang is one of the longest in the business, creating quite a possible issue if it will be hanging over a driveway.  You may have to constantly be getting out of your car to crank it up so you don’t back into it.
  • Paint seems to flake and chip easily, many reviews speaking to the rusting nature of the goal, even on brand new, delivered product.
  • The company claims to be a BBB accredited company on their website, but upon further investigation at BBB.org, we found this was not true.

Reviews from Around the Web

The only other online reviews that I could find were from the corporate website. It would be nice if there were more reviews on independent websites like Amazon.

Sports Authority.com: Not Yet Reviewed

Amazon.com: Reviews are sparse

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsb5vUJC9Kc

Summary

I would say that the Diamond Version is a decent hoop system. You do have to crank that thing a lot to lower and raise it. Your arm may be too tired to actually play.  My one caution is that the reviews online are coming from the Pro Dunk’s website itself and the reviews from Amazon are mediocre, at best.  Given the choice, I would avoid a Pro Dunk and go with something from a more reputable company, such as Goalrilla.

Orders processed Through Amazon.com

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