
Source: Andy Lyons / Getty
Basketball isn’t the only sport that J.R. Smith can get a bag from.
After taking some time away from his basketball career, Smith decided to attend college and enrolled at North Carolina A&T State University. After enrolling in the fall of 2021, Smith didn’t focus all his time on his studies, and his competitive nature got the best of him, so he joined the school’s golf team as a walk-on. He’d eventually become the school’s Academic Athlete of the Year with a 4.0 GPA.
Now with a love for another sport, the NBA champ is ready to wax poetic about it in a new podcast alongside jeweler Ben Baller and Malbon Golf founder Stephen. Malbon. Together the trio will discuss how their knowledge in their respective career lends itself to golf.
To kick things off, they discuss how they ended up together, how they were introduced to the sport, their aspirations for the show and more. Upcoming guest appearances include the likes of golf enthusiasts and players like Michelle Wie West and George Lopez.
“There’s so many different things and nuances that I don’t know and places I haven’t been,” Smith said. “In basketball, I feel like I’ve been in every arena, been in pretty much every situation. I know pretty much everything there is about the game. For me, golf’s completely different, and I like to talk about golf way more than I like to talk about basketball now.”
Baller spoke about the new podcast being a way for nonprofessional golfers to be able to talk about the sport in a more relaxed way.