Breakaway rim

In the early days of basketball, dunking was considered ungentlemanly, and was rarely used outside of practice or warm-up drills.

During the 1970s, however, players like Julius Erving and David Thompson of the American Basketball Association popularized the dunk with their athletic flights to the basket, increasing the demand for flexible rims.

[1][2] While several men claim to have created the breakaway rim, Arthur Ehrat is recognized as the inventor by the Smithsonian Institution's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention & Innovation.

[1][3] A resident of Lowder, Illinois, Ehrat worked at a grain elevator for most of his life and barely knew anything about basketball.

In 1975, his nephew, an assistant basketball coach at Saint Louis University, asked him to help design a rim that could support slam dunks.