While their NBA careers overlapped for 15 years, LeBron James and JJ Redick never found themselves on the same team.
Until now.
According to The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar and former shooting guard-turned-ESPN analyst are joining forces to start a podcast. Titled Mind the Game, the podcast currently doesn’t have any corporate backing or advertising sponsors.
The first episode will release on Tuesday, with new episodes being released weekly. The show will be available on YouTube and all major podcast platforms, and will be joint produced by James’ Uninterrupted and Redick’s ThreeFourTwo Productions
“It’s meant to be a very free-flowing conversation about the sport and about the game,” Redick told Marchand of the show. “If you look at it in a very simplistic way, it’s just about basketball.”
In a statement, James added: “I’m really proud of what we’ve done to innovate in sports media… When I do a project, the only thing I think about is whether me and my friends would watch it. That is definitely the case with Mind the Game. Everything doesn’t need to be designed for internet culture and clicks.”
The idea of James starting his own weekly podcast is certainly intriguing, especially with the Lakers in the midst of a late-season playoff push. It’s also notable that the podcast will feature not only the NBA’s biggest star, but also a member of ESPN’s top broadcast team in Redick, who was promoted after Doc Rivers made the in-season jump to take the Milwaukee Bucks’ head coaching job earlier this year.
Having combined to play nearly 40 seasons in the NBA between them, James and Redick certainly have no shortage of experience to draw on. While the sports podcast market is certainly oversaturated, you’d be hard-pressed to find one with more star power than this one. It will be interesting to see how the project evolves both from a content and business standpoint moving forward.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.