Hosted by Dan Le Batard, Amin Elhassan, and Israel Gutierrez, this limited series is part nostalgia machine, part media autopsy—pulling apart the biggest athletes of our time through the moments that made them unavoidable.
Season one belongs to LeBron James.
From the Sports Illustrated cover that anointed him before he could legally celebrate, to The Decision that broke the internet before we even used that term, to “Shut Up & Dribble,” a phrase that accidentally defined an era—this is the story of how one athlete bent the relationship between sports, media, and power into something new.
Each episode revisits a single flashpoint – alongside a rotating cast of guests who were there, covered it, or lived it- the show asks the uncomfortable questions, finds the human ones, and occasionally gets distracted in ways that feel… familiar.
The Step Back is a time capsule with better context, worse timing, and just enough perspective to realize we might have missed the point the first time.
Host Dan Le Batard and guests Amin Elhassan and Izzy Gutierrez interview author Hanif Abdurraqib about LeBron James's legacy and future aspirations.
1 Jul 2026
Shut Up & Dribble (feat. Jemele Hill & Cari Champion)
LeBron James didn't just become the most famous athlete on Earth — he became one of its most careful, and occasionally most explosive, political voices. In the most contentious episode of our LeBron series, Dan, Amin and Izzy trace the moments that turned a basketball player into a lightning rod:
The Trayvon Martin hoodie photo — and Dan's own take on it at the time, warts and all. The killing of Tamir Rice, and the "I Can't Breathe" shirt that, in the moment, didn't include his name. The ESPYs speech. The White House years, plural. The Bubble. And the legacy that's still being argued over, for better or worse.
With firsthand memories from Jemele Hill and Cari Champion, plus a LeBron teammate history conveniently forgot.
Homework for this episode:
• "Reaction to tragic killing shows growth of LeBron" (The Miami Herald, 2012)
• "Kevin Durant x LeBron James x Cari Champion" (Uninterrupted, 2018)
• "Trump Attacked Black Athletes — and Paid for It in the End" (The Atlantic, 2020)
• "LeBron James Doesn’t Talk About Politics Anymore" (New York, 2022)
Encouraged homework for next week's season finale:
• "There's Always This Year" by Hanif Abdurraqib (2025)
More from "The Step Back":
• Episode 1: The Chosen One (feat. Sonny Vaccaro)
• Episode 2: The Decision (feat. Jim Gray)
• Episode 3: I'm Coming Home (feat. Iman Shumpert)
• Episode 4: LeBron Inc. (feat. Pablo Torre)
• Don't miss an episode — subscribe here
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16 Jun 2026
Lebron Inc. (feat. Pablo Torre)
The Step Back is back — and this time, it's personal. Or at least, it's financial.
After a brief hiatus, Dan, Amin, and Izzy return with Pablo Torre to dig into his landmark 2017 ESPN feature on LeBron James — not the player chasing rings, but the architect quietly building an empire. What Phil Jackson famously dismissed as a "posse" — a word that told you everything about who was really threatened — turns out to have been a boardroom in disguise. Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, Randy Mims: ridiculed first, respected later, inevitable in hindsight.
This is the episode where The Step Back steps sideways — from flashpoints to foresight — to ask how a kid from Akron turned loyalty into leverage, and a group of friends into a seat at the table that nobody wanted to give them.
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27 May 2026
I'm Coming Home (feat. Iman Shumpert)
Dan, Amin and Izzy go behind the scenes of LeBron's loyalty, from Pat Riley's frustration to LeBron's Vegas hotel room and the Cavs' huddle in Game Seven.
More from "The Step Back":
Episode 1: The Chosen One
Episode 2: The Decision
Don't miss an episode — subscribe here
Homework for this episode:
"I'm Coming Home" by LeBron James, as told to Lee Jenkins (Sports Illustrated, 2014) - https://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers
"Return of the King" by Brian Windhorst and Dave McMenamin (2018) - https://bookshop.org/p/books/return-of-the-king-lebron-james-the-cleveland-cavaliers-and-the-greatest-comeback-in-nba-history-brian-windhorst/9390251
Homework for next week's episode:
"LeBron: The Sequel" by Pablo Torre (ESPN The Magazine, 2017) - https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/18686205/the-second-chapter-lebron-james-career
Optional homework for next week's episode:
"LeBron, Inc." by Brian Windhorst (2018). - https://bookshop.org/p/books/lebron-inc-the-making-of-a-billion-dollar-athlete-brian-windhorst/7395291
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19 May 2026
The Decision (feat. Jim Gray)
As our exclusive new series on LeBron's legacy continues, Dan, Amin and Izzy re-live the awkward silence — and alternate history — of a made-for-TV moment that altered the course of Miami sports and player empowerment forever.
More from "The Step Back":
Episode 1: The Chosen One
Don't miss an episode — subscribe here
Homework for this episode:
"The Decision" (ESPN, 2010) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afpgnb_9bA4
Homework for next week's episode:
"I'm Coming Home" by LeBron James, as told to Lee Jenkins (Sports Illustrated, 2014) - https://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers
Optional homework for next week's episode:
"Return of the King" by Brian Windhorst and Dave McMenamin (2018) - https://bookshop.org/p/books/return-of-the-king-lebron-james-the-cleveland-cavaliers-and-the-greatest-comeback-in-nba-history-brian-windhorst/9390251
Encouraged homework for next month's season finale:
"There's Always This Year" by Hanif Abdurraqib (2025) - https://bookshop.org/p/books/there-s-always-this-year-on-basketball-and-ascension-hanif-abdurraqib/20204172
From our guest:
"Talking to GOATs: The Moments You Remember and the Stories You Never Heard" - https://www.talkingtogoats.com/
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12 May 2026
The Chosen One (feat. Sonny Vaccaro)
In the season premiere, Dan, Amin, and Izzy go back to the Sports Illustrated cover that turned a teenager into an industry, re-reading the prophecy with the very people who helped craft it. Plus: a resplendent Sonny Vaccaro joins us to re-live his failed $100 million offer to bring The Kid from Akron to Adidas. All that AND real talk about LeBron's untold origin story.
Homework for this episode:
• "Ahead of His Class" by Grant Wahl (Sports Illustrated, 2002)
https://vault.si.com/vault/2002/02/18/ahead-of-his-class-ohio-high-school-junior-lebron-james-is-so-good-that-hes-already-being-mentioned-as-the-heir-to-air-jordan
Homework for the next week's episode:
• "The Decision" (ESPN, 2010)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afpgnb_9bA4
From our guest:
• "Legends and Soles: The Memoir of an American Original" by Sonny Vaccaro with Armen Keteyian
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/legends-and-soles-sonny-vaccaroarmen-keteyian
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Inside a recent episode
There's Always This Year (feat. Hanif Abdurraqib)
Published 21 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] It wasn't like era one LeBron Cleveland where he was taking some guys to the finals that made, you know, this was a better Cleveland team. And so had he come back and not been able to get over the top and win a championship with that team, I think there would still be a lot of pain and perhaps some bitterness. […]
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