A breakaway rim is a basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 hoop that can bend slightly when a player dunks

Slam dunk

A slam dunk is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air and manually powers the ball downward through the basket with one or both hands over the rim. This is considered a normal field goal attempt; if successful it is worth two points. The term "slam dunk" was...

 a basketball, and then instantly snap back into a horizontal position when the player releases it. It allows players to dunk the ball without shattering the backboard

Backboard shattering

A backboard shattering is an accident or stunt in basketball. It occurs when a player slam dunks the ball hard enough to break the fiberglass of the backboard. The stunt has caused games to be canceled or delayed, serious injuries to occur and expensive costs of clean up and replacement...

, and it reduces the possibility of wrist injuries. Breakaway rims were invented in the mid-1970s and are now an essential element of high-level basketball.

In the early days of basketball, dunking was considered "ungentlemanly", and was rarely used outside of practice or warm-up drills. A broken backboard or distorted rim could delay a game for hours. During the 1970s, however, players like Julius Erving

Julius Erving

Julius Winfield Erving II , commonly known by the nickname Dr. J, is a retired American basketball player who helped launch a modern style of play that emphasizes leaping and play above the rim....

 and David Thompson

David Thompson (basketball)

David O'Neil Thompson is a former American professional basketball star with the Denver Nuggets of both the National Basketball Association and American Basketball Association , as well as the Seattle SuperSonics...

 of the American Basketball Association

American Basketball Association

The American Basketball Association was a professional basketball league founded in 1967. The ABA ceased to exist with the ABA–NBA merger in 1976.-League history:...

 popularized the dunk with their athletic flights to the basket, increasing the demand for flexible rims.

While several men claim to have created the breakaway rim, Arthur Ehrat is recognized as the inventor by the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention & Innovation. A resident of Lowder, Illinois

Lowder, Illinois

Lowder is an unincorporated community in Sangamon County, Illinois, United States. Lowder is located along a railroad line northwest of Virden. Lowder had a post office, which closed on October 24, 2010....

, Ehrat worked at a grain elevator

Grain elevator

A grain elevator is a tower containing a bucket elevator, which scoops up, elevates, and then uses gravity to deposit grain in a silo or other storage facility...

 for most of his life and barely knew anything about basketball. In 1975, his nephew, an assistant basketball coach at Saint Louis University

Saint Louis University

Saint Louis University is a private, co-educational Jesuit university located in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1818 by the Most Reverend Louis Guillaume Valentin Dubourg SLU is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River. It is one of 28 member institutions of the...

, asked him to help design a rim that could support slam dunks. Using a spring from a John Deere

John Deere

John Deere was an American blacksmith and manufacturer who founded Deere & Company, one of the largest and leading agricultural and construction equipment manufacturers in the world...

 cultivator

Cultivator

A cultivator is any of several types of farm implement used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with teeth that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. Another sense refers to machines that use rotary motion of disks or teeth to accomplish a similar result...

, Ehrat designed a rim that could bend and spring back after 125 pounds of force were applied to it. He called his device "The Rebounder". In 1982, he was awarded a patent for his invention, which was officially called a "deformation-preventing swingable mount for basketball goals".

The breakaway rim was first used by the NCAA during the 1978 Final Four

1978 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament

The 1978 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 32 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 11, 1978, and ended with the championship game on March 27 in St. Louis, Missouri...

 in St. Louis. The NBA began using them after Darryl Dawkins

Darryl Dawkins

Darryl Dawkins is a retired American professional basketball player, most noted for his days with the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, although he also played briefly for the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz late in his career...

shattered two backboards with his dunks in 1979.