The weird, wonderful history of basketball retrieval device patents for lonely shooters

Basketball, perhaps more than any other sport, is a wonderful game to play by yourself. With just a ball and a hoop, you can improve your skills and entertain yourself for hours on end. The main problem is that a shot basketball often falls through the net, then rolls far away, requiring the shooter to interrupt his or her practice to play fetch.

Mankind has wrestled with this problem for years, searching for an instrument that would return basketballs to friendless shooters. The industry standards now are either a net on the ground or an apparatus attached to the rim that divert the ball’s downward momentum toward the shooter. They work okay, but they’re far from the only attempts this species has made to get our basketballs back. What follows is a summary of over 50 years of weird, wonderful basketball retrieval device design, broken into four categories with a bonus submission from this amateur engineer.

This patent from 1991 puts a giant tray beneath the hoop, which funnels the ball into a tube that ends in a little shooter-facing ramp. It reminds me of those marble run toys, which is to say it is a massive excess of stuff to do what a basic net could do. It makes me want to see a basketball-powered Rube Goldberg machine that toasts bread once you shoot.

Want your basketball back? Just wheel this towering, high-walled siege weapon under the rim and shoot away!

I have read this several times and am still not certain how the “discharge chute” at right is supposed to work.

This is exactly the set-up of an arcade Pop-a-Shot game -- and just as restrictive laterally -- but big enough for a normal basketball hoop. Also, the basket doesn’t move back and forth. I’d rather just play Pop-a-Shot.

The netting here serves as a funnel, not as the return. Its high-walled sides help you practice putting arc on your shot (teams use similar contraptions for that purpose), and then it sends the balls back on a little track not unlike the one at a bowling lane. The inventor should have added a nozzle that blows on your fingers, I think.

This is from 1966, and it’s basically the simplest version of this concept. A tubular net brings the ball right back to you, and serves the added purpose of making your basketball hoop look like an elephant. My colleague Ryan Nanni imagined a version of this in which the snout connects directly to the shooter’s body. Mobility!

This device is pretty self-explanatory, though I enjoy the succinct title of the alternative “Projectile machine with remote control for basketball practice and the like.” Gotta wonder how much stopping power these babies pack.

Just like the classic football return device, this uses a pair of motor-driven, spinning things to propel the basketball back to the shooter.

This one from 1967 is different. It attaches directly to the basket and catches the ball before it goes anywhere, then a motor-driven “plunger” punches the ball back through the rim from below. Does it actually go back to the shooter? I doubt it!

This dude laughs at all your stupid nets and chutes and basketball cannons, then pushes the switch on his special electromagnet bracelet, which attracts a magnetic element that has been EMBEDDED IN THE BALL, Y’ALL. As if by magic, he zaps the ball back into his hands, then continues swishing threes. But not before switching off his special bracelet, of course. God, this dude is so much cooler than all these other nerds.

I figured it’s wrong to critique all these patents without offering my own. I’ve always been fascinated by beasts of burden, so my design features a pit of ants (shovel included) positioned under the basket and a sugary fluid sprayed out of a bottle onto the shooter’s shoes. The ball falls through the rim and into the ant pit. After mourning the casualties of the impact, a group of ants enticed by the SugarShoes^TM begins moving toward the shooter, carrying the ball with them on their backs. The shooter collects the ball and resumes shooting. The inevitable ants crawling all over the shooter’s face and arms add an element of defense, which is good practice for high-pressure game situations.

I hope this has been an educational experience. Happy shooting!