How LeBron James and JJ Redick Decided to Launch a Podcast

LeBron James and JJ Redick announced the launch of a new podcast Monday, and FOS has a few more details about the genesis of the project and what to expect moving forward.

Episodes of Mind the Game will be produced by James’s Uninterrupted and Redick’s ThreeFourTwo Productions, featuring the two basketball savants dissecting the X’s and O’s of the game. A source familiar with the arrangement tells FOS that James and Redick came up with the idea for the podcast while talking hoops over dinner and wine in Las Vegas during the NBA In-Season Tournament (“This should be the show! This is the show!”), which the Lakers would go on to win.

Consistent with that meeting: The show will stay more focused on basketball than off-court topics, and the pair’s shared love of wine, as seen in a teaser for the debut episode, will be a through line. Mind the Game’s YouTube page suggests the stars will sit down weekly, but with equally busy schedules, the source says a true cadence is unclear at this point; it will come down to when they each have time to record. And that YouTube home is important: Mind the Game will launch with no media (or advertising) partners, as James and Redick want the show and its format to be 100% their own, no notes from above, akin to what Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee have with their own independently produced shows that are syndicated on major platforms.