LeBron's New Basketball Podcast
King James and JJ Redick team up on a basketball podcast with depth and insight.
Sports media is big business. And the trend has only been accelerating. The trend in the explosion of content is using the old “shock jock” model of cartoonish personalities barking at each other and having “fire takes.”
While the platforms and holding companies surely love the click bait and rise in viewership, to actually sit through most of these shows is tedious and running a bulldozer through much of what makes sport compelling and human.
What’s worse is when these media personas with no background in the game turn to a tabloid model that speaks mostly to pop culture, sports gambling and headline grabbing.
The best sports shows, podcasts and content comes straight from the source. Current and former athletes opening up and taking control of their own narratives. See the excellent All The Smoke, hosted by former NBA stars Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. Or the insightful and conversational The CJ McCollum Show from the current NBA shooting guard.
With Mind the Game, from Uninterrupted and ThreeFourTwo Productions, comes the latest entry into the sports content game. And it comes directly from the GOAT level, bringing together LeBron James and JJ Redick. LeBron has been the face of the NBA for over two decades and has steadily been building his off the court empire, including various media platforms. Redick is a former NBA all time sharpshooter and one of the recent rising voices in the sports media landscape. The pairing is exactly who fans of the game want to hear talk about the game.
It’s been interesting to see the relationship athletes have had with the media over the years. In the time of Jordan, there was no social media of course. Fans would get short snippets of interviews on game days, or quotes in physical newspapers and magazines. Our superstars were enigmas. Separated from mere mortals and elevated to god-like platforms. We didn’t know what they had for lunch. It was easy to assume they didn’t even eat.
In the 2000s, things evolved quickly. Take Kobe Bryant. At the beginning of his career, he was stand offish with the media. Giving short, angry answers that only fueled his status as one of the most hated athletes in the world. When social media exploded during the middle of his career, he lambasted it, saying he would never join and that it was a waste of time. Cut to the latter half of his career when he turned into a quote and anecdote machine on Facebook, Twitter and later Instagram. He realized what being accessible could do for his brand. And fans ate it up, sending his posts viral and organically seeding his famous Mamba Mentality across a new generation.
It was the kind of access we wished we’d had with athletes in the 80s, 90s and before. Finally, there was a paper trail of the trash talk, the head games—all the way down to mundane takes on what was for lunch.
As Kobe was building his media persona and empire, preparing for his life after the game—other athletes took note. Suddenly, every athlete had a platform. Many bought media and production companies. It has become a cliche for athletes to say that they want to control their narratives. And why shouldn’t they? They have followings that dwarf many brands. And with the evolution of free agency and exponential jumps in player salaries, the modern fan is more likely to follow a basket of their favorite players, than pledge lifetime loyalty to a single team.
Sports are changing fast, again. And modern athletes realize more than ever the power and leverage they can multiply by being accessible and transparent.
Enter LeBron, who, seemingly grown in a lab, has been the ideal mix of on the court greatness and off court acumen since he was in high school. Go back to those early ESPN interviews, and the guy spoke like an articulate veteran when he was 17. He was a born leader, with an insane basketball gift—with a clear ambition to shoot beyond the stars from before he ever stepped on an NBA court. He has long cited billionaire rapper and business mogul Jay-Z as an inspiration and career template. It’s safe to say he has followed the “blueprint” well.
LeBron has put out shows, Hollywood films and podcasts before. But with Mind the Game, this is the most behind the curtain look at basketball that he’s given us. His other shows, like The Shop, have been more of a platform to connect him with pop culture and other sports and media personalities. With Mind the Game, he and JJ Redick promise to get into the weeds on the basketball talk. And in episode one, they deliver on that promise.
They waste no time into getting into literal Xs and Os, breaking down some of their favorite plays and detailing how they see the game. LeBron is known for his superhuman ability to analyze plays and recall them with photographic memory. Here, he talks about his frustration with players who don’t share his basketball IQ and deep appreciation for the strategic side of the game.
The first episode is also filled with more aspirational and instructive moments, like detailing the intangibles that make a great basketball player. We’ve heard some of these themes before in interview answers over the years, but this platform promises to go way deeper and on LeBron’s terms.
Kobe Bryant appeared on the ESPN series Details several times. There he was able to analyze game footage and provide his thoughts on the strategy and mental side of the game. Those episodes are still revered and analyzed as a prized look inside his beautiful basketball mind. Sadly, those episodes are limited.
LeBron, along with JJ Redick are now building an archive of basketball IQ that will be studied by future generations of basketball players. It’s like they’re putting on a clinic, giving a halftime speech and inviting us all into the huddle. No longer will we need to guess and speculate what’s going through LeBron’s head. He’s giving us access to the source. And in the process, he’s setting a new standard for how the most elite athletes will need to open up from here on out. If the face of the league and most iconic player can be this generous with talking about the game, there’s no room for any other player to run and hide.
The bottom line: Mind the Game is giving the stage to two of the most insightful and articulate basketball minds of this generation and giving them a content engine that will let them give immense value to the basketball world.
There’s a lot of noise in the sports content world, but Mind the Game is must see from the jump.
Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.