How to assemble a portable basketball hoop without doing any step twice

Before you open the box

Read the manual that came in your box; it overrides anything here, and the makers revise them. Then: clear a flat 10-by-12-foot area, put down the cardboard from the box to protect the backboard, find a second adult (every manual we read says two or more), and set out tools: a socket set with a ratchet, two adjustable wrenches, a Phillips screwdriver, a rubber mallet, a tape measure, a level, and a hose or a funnel and sand. Escalade ships the NXT “partially pre-assembled with attached hardware”; Spalding calls its Momentous line “Ez Assembly” with minimal tools. Neither ships assembled.

The steps, in order

1. Inventory. Lay every bag of hardware on the cardboard next to its number in the parts list. A missing bolt found now is a phone call; found at step 8 it is a hoop lying in the driveway for a week.
2. Base and wheels. Attach the wheels and any steel frame (the NXT's Stabili-Frame bolts the pole mount to the chassis here). Roll the base to its final spot; it will not move again once filled.
3. Fill the base now. Sand if you can (about 40% heavier than water, no leaks, no freezing); water if you cannot. A 35-gallon base takes seven or eight 50-lb bags of play sand through a funnel. Filling after the pole is up means working around a 10-foot lever.
4. Pole sections. Three-piece poles (most Lifetimes) join with a tapered fit that the manual says to seat with a mallet and a block of wood; a half-seated joint is the wobble owners complain about. Mark the alignment before you drive them together. Escalade's NXT pole is slanted and bolts to the frame, not a socket.
5. Rim and net to the backboard, on the ground. Bolt the rim through the board and its bracket per the manual, thread the net on now, and attach the backboard to the extension arm while everything is flat. This is where the manuals differ most; follow yours.
6. Lift mechanism. Attach the actuator, crank or lift to the pole with the rim at the lowest setting; the manuals assemble the lift at 7.5 feet (8 on the Spalding Momentous), which is also the height you want the board at when it goes on.
7. Board onto the pole. Two people. One holds the board and arm, one drives the bolts. Do not fully tighten until every bolt is started.
8. Square and tighten. Level the board side to side with a tape from each corner to the ground, then tighten everything in the order the manual gives. Cycle the lift through its full range once.

How long it really takes

Escalade claims “90 minutes or less” for the NXT 54 on the strength of the pre-assembled subassemblies. Spalding claims “30 minutes or less” for the Momentous H-frame and “30 minutes or less” for the Momentous H-frame portables. Lifetime's product pages do not state an assembly time. Those are makers' claims for an experienced two-person crew with the parts laid out. For a first hoop, a reasonable plan is a Saturday morning: an hour for inventory and the base, an hour for the pole and board, and the afternoon for the sand to be bought because you forgot it.

The six mistakes that cost an hour

• Filling the base after the pole is up.
• Driving pole sections together before marking the alignment holes.
• Attaching the backboard to the pole before the rim is on it.
• Tightening the first bolt all the way before starting the rest.
• Assembling on a slope and discovering the board is a degree off.
• Losing the crank handle in the packaging; put it on a hook in the garage the same day.

Two jobs come straight after assembly: filling the base — do it with the hoop already standing where it lives — and moving it, which is the tilt-and-wheel motion the base is designed around.