What's the point? Quieter neighborhoods? All night basketball? Don't you think the sound of the ball hitting the floor contributes to your ability to dribble?

I can see the value, for sure. Kids dribble balls and disturb the neighbors all the time.

From my miniscule experience, there are at least 3 sources of noise when a basketball hits the ground.

1) The ball weighs quite a bit and it deforms the surface it is bouncing upon, which cause shockwaves; some of which are translated into audible sound waves.

2) The ball deforms when it hits the ground, which causes shockwaves as it bounces, and rings as the ball vibrates and distributes the energy from the impact.

3) The inside surface of the ball is smooth and the sound waves of the air inside echo at a resonant frequency.

Three things come to mind to help reduce the transmission of shock waves:

1) layer the inside surface of the ball with some material that absorbs the audible spectrum of sound.

2) fill the ball with aerogel to dampen the resonant cavity of the ball.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

3) create a secondary layer (primary layer needed for tactile control over the ball) under the primary layer of the ball that distributes the bending moments over a larger area to provide the same elastic quality in bounce height, but spreads the impact energy over a large diameter when the ball impacts the ground.

What a neat idea..and how about squeakless sneekers.

It's ironic that audio guys from TV and radio go to lots of trouble to capture the squeaks and bounce-sounds and you don't even want to hear them.

Because of it, I think TV basketball makes alot more noise than real basketball.