Wilson, the company that creates the official basketball for the NBA, has recently released an “airless” basketball. The Airless Gen1 Basketball by Wilson was created to balance out the basketball scene.
This basketball is most notable for its Airlessness as it technically isn’t a full ball. The ball is made up of a combination of special chemicals and is 3D printed with a hexagon pattern. The ball’s design allows you to put something as thin as a pencil inside the ball.
The compounds that create this ball allow it to be marginally the same weight as a normal basketball as well as have the same bounce and accuracy as a basketball. Unfortunately, the main difference is the iconic sound of the basketball bounce.
The point of this ball is to bring balance to the game of basketball. Every ball has a certain characteristic as some bounce a little better or have a deformity that makes the ball bounce a little off. The Airless Basketball is meant to take away those inconsistencies that the ball may have.
The ball has a hefty price of $2,500 and only having less than 200 made on the initial release, this ball might take some time to phase into the NBA. The ball may work its way through college basketball then the NBA after it has been fully tested and perfected.
The Airless basketball is still in its first generation and can be tweaked accordingly to establish the president that the original has.
The ball may be the future but there are some steps that need to be taken to implement it at the college level as the Contra Costa College Athletic Director Kyle Alvarado put it, “We have a ball that we are contracted to use, and it would be pointless to use a ball we can’t play with,” meaning it may be a while before we see this ball applied any time soon.
An Airless Basketball is another surreal step towards the future. To tell someone even 10 years ago that an airless ball is such a thing would be insane and yet here it is. This ball is another step to the future of basketball and may be the first addition of many to sports.