Posted on 02/17/2024 1:07:06 PM PST by Red Badger
The most compelling show of contemporary basketball skill at last year's NBA All-Star Game didn't necessarily come from one of the players dribbling a ball ... it came from a ball itself. That ball was Wilson's Airless basketball prototype, a futuristic piece of see-through design work that traded good, old reliable pneumatics for a 3D-printed lattice structure offering the supple bounce without the air. At the time, it wasn't clear what – if any – future the ball had, but now Wilson has launched it as a limited edition. A very expensive limited edition.
Called the Airless Gen1, the new production basketball looks much like last year's prototype to the naked eye, but Wilson promises it's been given a full work-over by its R&D lab. It says that its team has improved performance while streamlining manufacturing processes enough to get the balls rolling out of the lab and onto the court.
Getting a little more specific, Wilson says the 3D-printed polymer lattice structure has been tweaked for more consistent performance and bounce while maintaining its traditional eight-panel look. It promises that the basketball nuzzles up close and cozy with the performance specifications of a regulation basketball, including in weight, size and rebound/bounce.
The most compelling show of contemporary basketball skill at last year's NBA All-Star Game didn't necessarily come from one of the players dribbling a ball ... it came from a ball itself. That ball was Wilson's Airless basketball prototype, a futuristic piece of see-through design work that traded good, old reliable pneumatics for a 3D-printed lattice structure offering the supple bounce without the air. At the time, it wasn't clear what – if any – future the ball had, but now Wilson has launched it as a limited edition. A very expensive limited edition.
(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...
Your sarcasm is cute. But out here in reality all products can be improved. Will this one actually be an improvement? I don’t know. But living in the desert and watching it eat all rubber I know the current form of athletic with a rubber bladder in the middle aren’t actually that great, two years maybe three before the microcracks show up in the rubber and they won’t hold air anymore. You can make fun of it now when it’s, admittedly, insanely expensive but once upon a time automatic cars in windows were expensive, now they’re just windows. If it works in a decade or two this will be the standard for most balls. It’s called product evolution.
Oops windows in cars. Too many distractions.
Problem is, you can’t change the bounce.
canine approved
I have an invisible, air filled basket ball I’ll let go for half of that.
How many blacks die for this?…
Like so many things today that are so unnecessary and such worthless, idle, mindless gimmicks; WHY?
How will it work on a muddy playground?
The future of EV automobile tire “rubber.”
Why do some people like to play around with other people’s balls?
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