LeBron James says frustration with national media led him to start podcast

While LeBron James’ recent podcast launch came as a surprise to most, it was something that had been a long time coming.

For the entirety of his career, LeBron James has been a mainstay on sports programming. And in many ways, his career has mirrored the evolution of those shows from highlight-driven to debate-driven ones.

LeBron has been the face of the NBA throughout that time and has been one of the central figures of those debates for years. To many, the evolution of the shows has been more devolving than evolving, with LeBron amongst them.

Being one of the people who consumes daily sports television and has the power to actually change it, LeBron took matters into his own hands by starting “Mind the Game” alongside JJ Redick.

Following the Lakers win on Sunday over the Pacers, LeBron talked about why he started the podcast.

“I feel like we were losing the essence of the game of basketball and the true meaning behind the game of basketball and teaching our youth and teaching the people what the game of basketball really, truly means,” LeBron said. “I think I was getting very frustrated with the daily comparisons every single day. Who is better…or how does this affect your legacy or if this guy in the ‘50s, would he be this or if this guy in the ‘50s played in the 2000s. It’s not good for the youth. Obviously, you want to hear that, you go to the barbershops.

“But you’re hearing it every day on national television and I felt like our audience needed a different approach and understand the true essence of the game and how I fell in love with the game. When you have someone like JJ who has kind of the same mindset about the game of basketball, very smart, fell in love with the game for all the right reasons. This is something that I’ve been thinking about for quite a while. It’s just JJ was perfect timing.”

For so long, the argument has been that debate-driven shows draw the viewers. It’s come at the cost of actually learning about the game of basketball with the barbershop debates LeBron mentioned being the only way people consume the game.

While those topics are fun in moderation, making them the only way to discuss basketball is not conducive to growing the game. LeBron recognized that and used his enormous platform to make a podcast that, at least through one episode, is everything that sports shows today isn’t.

Will it stay like that? Hopefully. Because with someone as intelligent as LeBron, getting the chance to get a peak inside how his brain works and how he sees the game feels like a gift each time.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.