Last summer, the basketball podcast “Mind the Game” ended under unusual circumstances.

The dynamic between its co-hosts had been transformed: After their ninth episode, one host, JJ Redick, became head coach of the other host, LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers.

It was not clear whether “Mind the Game” would continue; Mr. Redick, a former player, confirmed his departure from years of podcasting by saying he was “excommunicated from the content space.”

But on Wednesday, after a nine-month hiatus, Mr. James will announce the return in April of the show — itself transformed. “Mind the Game” has not only a new co-host, the former player and coach Steve Nash, but a new distributor: the Amazon-owned podcast network Wondery.

The partnership is a departure from the show’s first batch of episodes, which were released directly to YouTube.

The three-year deal is also the latest attempt by Amazon to strengthen and distinguish its sports programming. In July, the company signed an 11-year streaming agreement with the National Basketball Association worth more than $1.8 billion annually.

A similar sequence unfolded in football when Wondery signed “New Heights,” the Jason and Travis Kelce podcast — the contract was worth a reported $100 million — after Amazon Prime Video acquired the rights to “Thursday Night Football.”