Bringing an outdoor basketball court back

Park basketball courts get the hardest use of anything we work on and the least attention. A court that is worn to black in two half-moons under the rims, cracked across the key, with a goal that leans and lines you cannot see from the far end, is not unusual; it is the normal condition of a court that has had ten years of pickup games and no maintenance. Bringing one back is a week's work. Here is what that week is.

Day one: the inspection, and the goals

We walk the court and chalk the cracks, flood it for low spots, and look hard at the goals, because a basketball court's goals are half its value. A pole that moves in its footing, a rim bent down from years of hanging, a backboard that shakes, a footing heaved by frost: all of it is fixed while the court is closed, which is cheaper than coming back. Rims are reset to 10 feet; a pole that is rusted through is replaced; a footing that has heaved is dug and repoured. The old court's lines are measured too, because half the park courts in the county were laid out by eye and the arc is not an arc.

Day two: wash and repair

Pressure washing to bare sound surface, with the algae treated along the shaded side. Then the repairs: the working cracks bridged with a fabric membrane, hairlines filled, and the depressions under the rims, which are the most-trodden square yards in the park, leveled with patch binder in lifts until the flood test comes up dry. The hollows under the rims are where the next surface would fail first if they were left.

Days three to five: the color system

An acrylic resurfacer to fill the texture, then two color coats of SportMaster ColorPlus with sand, the sand a touch finer than for tennis so the ball does not skid. Park courts usually get two colors, a darker court and a lighter apron, and often a third in the keys, which helps the free-throw line read and gives the court a look the neighborhood notices. The blue court with the red apron on the river in the Flats is the version we are asked for most. Each coat dries a few hours in good weather; the second color coat goes on crosswise to the first.

Day six: the lines

This is where the rulebook comes in, and where most park courts were wrong before. A high school court is 84 by 50 feet with a 12-foot key and a three-point arc at 19 feet 9 inches; a college court is 94 by 50 with a 12-foot key and an arc at 22 feet 1¾ inches since 2019; the NBA court is 94 by 50 with a 16-foot key and an arc at 23 feet 9 inches, 22 feet in the corners. A park court is usually lined to the high school rules, because that is the game most of its players play in the gym, and it gets one arc, not two. We lay the lines out from the backboard plane and the center line with a tape and a trammel for the arcs, because an arc is the hardest line in the trade to get right, and we paint them in two coats of textured line paint so the free-throw line plays like the floor around it. Pickleball lines in a fourth color across the half courts are a popular addition; the court earns its keep in the mornings.

Day seven: play

Cure for a day or two depending on the weather, nets on the rims, the fence gate open. A resurfaced park court lasts four to eight years before the half-moons under the rims come back, with crack filling every autumn and a wash a year. The goals, if they were set right, outlast two surfaces.

What it costs

About what a tennis court resurfacing costs, since the area and the system are the same, plus the goal work and the third color if there is one. The service page has the steps in order. If the court is one of several in a park, we do them one at a time so the others stay open.