Mind the Game | |||||||
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Presentation | |||||||
Hosted by | |||||||
Genre | Sports | ||||||
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Created by | |||||||
Language | English | ||||||
Updates | Weekly | ||||||
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No. of episodes | 9 | ||||||
Publication | |||||||
Original release | 2024 | ||||||
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YouTube information | |||||||
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Years active | 2024–present | ||||||
Subscribers | 653K [1] | ||||||
Total views | 33.1 million [1] | ||||||
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Last updated: June 12, 2024 |
Mind the Game is a sports podcast hosted by the professional basketball player LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick. The show's first episode premiered on March 19, 2024. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Mind the Game is hosted by American professional basketball players LeBron James and JJ Redick; while James is an active player, Redick was retired by the time the podcast premiered in March 2024. In June 2024, Redick became the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, the team James plays for. It is produced by James' and Redick's media production companies, Uninterrupted and ThreeFourTwo Productions, respectively.
While the series is James' first venture into podcasting, Redick had been in the space for years prior. Redick was first approached in the summer of 2015 to join NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski's then new website, The Vertical, as a writer. [6] Still an active player at the time, Redick declined, thinking he would not able to balance writing with his playing workload. That October, Wojnarowski pitched the idea of Redick hosting a podcast instead. [6] In February 2016, Redick became the first active NBA player to host a weekly show when he launched his podcast with The Vertical, part of Yahoo! Sports' network. [6] [7] Redick hosted 40 episodes of his podcast for Yahoo! Sports, as well as a singular one produced by Uninterrupted. [8] Redick was also the subject of The Process, a short documentary film produced by Uninterrupted in 2017. [9]
Redick also met media producer Tommy Alter, who suggested the former host a podcast for The Ringer . Alter's production credits include The Shop , a talk show-formatted web series starring James. [6] Redick went on to host for three seasons, the final of which was co-hosted by Alter. [6] In 2020, following his stint with The Ringer, Redick co-founded ThreeFourTwo Productions along with Alter and the two began hosting The Old Man and the Three podcast. [6] [8]
After the first episode of Mind the Game was uploaded, Jimmy Traina of Sports Illustrated called the podcast "a must listen". [10] Traina wrote that since Redick already proved himself a "tremendous podcaster" in the space and added that James' foray into podcasting was successful, calling him "a natural" and praising his mixture of "X's and O's with fun and lightheartedness". [10]
No. | Title | Original release date | Viewers (millions) [lower-alpha 1] |
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1 | "What Makes a Great Basketball Player?" | March 19, 2024 | 3.87 [11] |
2 | "The Hardest Actions to Guard in Basketball" | March 27, 2024 | 2.20 [12] |
3 | "Basketball Evolution" | April 3, 2024 | 1.59 [13] |
4 | "The Spacing, The Icons and The Block" | April 10, 2024 | 1.03 [14] |
5 | "The NBA Playoffs" | April 17, 2024 | 1.13 [15] |
6 | "How Three-Point Shooting Changed Everything" | May 1, 2024 | 0.73 [16] |
7 | "Breaking Down the 2024 NBA Playoffs (So Far)" | May 8, 2024 | 0.81 [17] |
8 | "The Conference Finals" | May 22, 2024 | 0.94 [18] |
9 | "The NBA Finals" | June 5, 2024 | 0.78 [19] |
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