Best Portable Basketball Hoop: Our Top Picks (2021)

Are you looking for the best portable basketball hoop to create a place to play basketball on your driveway or garden?

Whether you are looking for the best outdoor portable basketball hoop for a driveway or garden, a portable basketball hoop is a good investment and gives you flexibility that an in-ground basketball hoop system does not.

Now you’ve got your outdoor basketball, a free standing basketball hoop that is portable will bring countless hours of fun, or help you work on your game.

In the following guide, we are going to go through the best portable basketball hoop systems, breaking down a variety of portable basketball hoops with portable basketball hoop reviews and our opinions on which is the best direction to go.

To save you the details, here is the overview of our answers to the question, what is the best portable basketball hoop?

Best Overall Portable Basketball Hoop: Lifetime 54
Best Cheap Portable Basketball Hoop: Northern Stone Pro Court
Best Mid-Tier Portable Basketball Hoop: Net1 Millennium
Best Premium Portable Basketball Hoop: Forza JS420 Elite Portable Basketball Hoop

At the bottom you can find an in-depth guide of things you should consider when buying your portable basketball hoop.

Best Portable Basketball Hoops

Lifetime 54 – Best Portable Adjustable Basketball Hoop

Price: £499.99
The Lifetime 54 portable basketball hoop is our overrall top pick if you want the best option for your driveway or garden.

Complete with a 54″ acrylic steel-framed backboard, and solid steel breakaway rim allowing for hours of dunking, it also has an adjustable system that ranges from a height of 7’5″ all the way to 10″ in infinite increments – with a super easy patented power lift adjustment mechanism.

The lifetime 54 has a heavy duty 35 gallon portable base than can be filled with water or sand as a counterbalance to ensure it is sturdy and does not fall over, whilst to top it all off, it comes with a 5 year warranty to put your mind at ease of any issues.

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Northern Stone Pro Court – Best Cheap Portable Basketball Hoop

Price: £169
If you have a limited budget and are looking for the best cheap portable basketball hoop, you don’t have to look much further than the Northern Stone Pro Court Option.

Coming in comfortably as the best portable basketball hoop under $300, it still manages a 44 inch backboard made of polycarbonate, and is still adjustable from 6’5″ to 10″ – though not with an easy handle like some of the more expensive options but instead a telescoping pole mechanism.

The rim, as you’d expect at this price, is not breakaway or spring loaded, so I would stay away from any type of dunking, but the whole system is all-weather resistant, meaning you can leave it outside as long as you like.

The base can be filled with 35kg water or 60kg sand, and has built in wheels for easy portability.

If you’re working on a tight budget and are willing to compromise on not dunking and using it mainly as a shooting rim, this should do the job.

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Net1 Millennium – Best Mid-Tier Portable Basketball Hoop

Price: £399.95
The NET1 Millennium portable basketball hoop is a great mid-level budget option which gives you the best of both worlds in terms of quality and affordability.

Adjustable from 7’6″ through to regulation 10″ with a simple adjustable pin system, the height can be changed in seconds, and with a 44″ transparent polycarbonate backboard plus spring loaded rim, it is garnering on elite level premium set up.

There is a good amount of overhang between the hoop and pole giving you space to operate, whilst the entire system is made from materials that won’t rust or be damaged by adverse weather.

The wheel on the front of the base makes the system easy to move around, simply tilt the system back to 45 degrees and roll to a suitable location but one of the added bonuses I particularly like is that should you wish to secure the system in one spot, ground anchors are included too.

The base capacity is 145 litres, giving it very solid counterbalance weight with either sand or water – again, sand/ballast is recommended to prevent freezing in colder conditions.

Buy now.

Forza JS420 Elite – Best Premium Portable Basketball Hoop

Price: £499.99

The Forza JS420 Elite portable basketball hoop is a premium option for those with budget and looking for a superior experience.

It is adjustable from 7’6″ through to 10″ regulation height with an easy to use winder handle, and has a large 57 inch by 37 inch made from imitation glass for the full professional transparency effect – one of the largest portable hoop backboards available on the market.

It weighs 52kg (115lbs), meaning it will require some work to move around – but it does have a wheel-base to make this easier. Note that you should be looking to fill the base with sand or ballast for maximum stability and performance – though you can use water, if you do, you must include anti-freeze formula to protect the base from cracking if the water was to freeze and expand.

The rims are spring loaded to allow for dunking and the base of the hoop has a ‘shot returner ‘ – it is angled so that if you are shooting alone and make it, the ball should hit the base and bounce back to you to save running around chasing your rebounds.

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What Should I Look for in a Portable Basketball Hoop?

When considering what is the best portable basketball hoop to buy, there are a number of different things you should keep in mind.

Below, we go through each one, and give some information to help you make a better informed opinion.

Backboard

When picking out an outdoor portable basketball hoop the backboard is a massively important thing to consider. When it comes to backboard there are three main things you should look for: size, material and overhang.

1) Backboard Size

The official size of an NBA backboard is 72 inches wide and 42 inches tall but rarely do you see a portable basketball hoop with these dimensions – I would suggest going with an in-ground basketball hoop if that is what you need.

Portable basketball hoop backboards usually start at around 44 inches, which is really small and does make things more difficult when trying to score layups or bank shots.

Ideally, you want to start your search with options around 54 inches wide, giving you a more professional feel, and much more space for backboard angled shots.

You will find some portable basketball hoop systems going up to 60 inches.

Technically, any size is workable, but generally bigger backboards are better to give you more surface area to work with.

2) Backboard Material

The second thing to consider is the material of the backboard. For portable adjustable basketball hoops, there are three typical clear backboard materials: polycarbonate, acrylic, or tempered glass.

Polycarbonate is the cheapest option on entry-level hoops and is a fancy name for plastic – also referred to as Polyethylene. It has one big advantage in that it’s almost indestructible and will last a very long time.

However, Backboards made out of polycarbonate will likely discolor after long exposure to the sun and will develop ‘dead spots’ over time where the ball doesn’t bounce off it so well.

Acrylic backboards are a good mid-tier option. They are transparent, similar to tempered glass, giving it a much more professional look, however, they can pick up scratches over time. The moderate price range makes it more affordable, and also it is a lot lighter, meaning you don’t need as heavy base, making the whole system cheaper.

Tempered glass is the best ‘premium’ backboard option and this is the backboard type used at the professional NBA and NCAA level. The glass is scratch-resistant, transparent, and long-lasting.

However, glass is the heaviest backboard material, which can be difficult for a mobile basketball hoop, meaning your system will be a lot more challenging to move around easily by yourself.

3) Backboard Overhang

The overhang or the offset of the backboard is the distance between the backboard and the support pole.

It basically is what defines how much space you have to operate when trying to manoeuvre underneath the hoop – the smaller it is, the more likely it is you will crash into the basketball pole after a lay up or dunk.

Professional set ups feature an overhang of at least 4 feet, but portable ones are far less. If you are going to be playing a lot of games/pick up, you want to look to make this as large as possible and if not, get padding on your pole to reduce the risk of injury!

Rims

Though the actual basketball ring size won’t change – 18 inches is the default standard across the market – what does change per system is the way the ring is fixed to the backboard.

There are two different options, a standard rim or a breakaway rim.

The standard rim is ‘fixed’ and simply screwed in directly to the backboard. Though it means it is stable, it means dunking is really a no-no, putting it at risk of potentially breaking off the backboard or bending as it has no way to absorb the impact.

The breakaway rim, does exactly what it says – ‘breaking away’ from the support system as pressure is applied allowing it to absorb contact. The ring base contains compression springs, making the rim ‘spring-loaded’ to not only be able to take dunking, but give a softer touch on shot attempt. There are two different variations – cheaper ones with exposed springs, and more expensive ones with covered springs offering better protection.

Base

A lot of people wonder what is the best thing to weigh down a portable basketball hoop and the base is one of the most important parts of any system.

Not only does it provide the hoop with the stability it needs to not fall over but it is also crucial to its portability – how easy you can move it around.

You have two options, either sand or water, or potentially a mixture of the two. The bigger the capacity of the base, the more stability it provides, but it also means potentially the heavier it is and more difficult it is to move around and so may require more than one person.

Beginner and more affordable hoops, start at around 27 gallons, which is sufficient because the backboards are usually a lot lighter so the counterbalance can afford to be. However, as you go more to more advanced portable basketball hoops, the volume can increase to 35 gallons, and all the way up to more than 50 gallons for some of the more professional set ups.

If you are going to be moving the hoop a lot – for example taking it out and putting it away for every single session – this is something you need to take into consideration.

Ensure the base has wheels to make this a lot easier.

Adjustable or not?

Will it be mainly adults playing so you just need a 10 foot regulation hoop, or will you have kids/younger players playing so you might want to be able to bring the hoop down?

Whether or not you want your portable hoop to be adjustable is definitely something to consider, and of course, having the option to be able to adjust the height does add cost to the system.

Basketball Net

We’ve covered the options for a basketball net in detail here, ultimately, you can either go chain net or nylon net.

Most portable basketball hoops you buy will come with a nylon net by default that will last a little while, but feel free to upgrade any time if you prefer the sound of chain!

Final Conclusions

Finding the best portable basketball hoop to buy is no easy decision, and as with all things, if you want the best hoop on the market it will cost you – quality comes at a cost.

However, a high-quality portable basketball hoop is an investment you will not regret. Having the ability to have a movable basketball hoop opens up your options and can also keep your parents happy so they don’t have to look at it all day if they want a clear driveway.

Now is the time to invest in a portable basketball hoop and enjoy a lifetime with your brand new mobile basketball hoop!