14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
2025 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game: How to watch, broadcast info and lineups for basketball frivolity
The NBA will be on 'Town Bizness' Friday, with the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game coming live from Oakland with sporting veterans Jerry Rice and Barry Bonds as honorary team leaders. Team Rice will have rapper 2 Chainz as an assistant coach, and TikTok superstar Khaby Lame will rep Team Bonds. Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal coached the inaugural celebrity run in 2003, and they are two of the four coaches for this year's All-Star mini-tournament.
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Kevin Hart will be an on-court emcee this year, putting his twist on Bobbito Garcia's commentary and crowd work. By the way, Hart is a four-time MVP of the Celebrity Game. If you're not doing anything else on Valentine's Day, you might as well lean in and embrace it?
Let's break down the teams and other details.
Team Rice has more actual hoopers — WNBA champ Kayla Thornton, who was selected in the Golden State Valkyries expansion draft; NFL Hall-of-Famer Terrell Owens, who won Celebrity Game MVP in 2008 and 2009; Matt Barnes, a member of the 'We Believe' Warriors and voice of 'All the Smoke'; and Chris Brickley, an NBA shooting coach. Shaboozey will bring the one, here comes the two, etc.
The full lineup also includes Druski, Walker Hayes, Oliver Stark, Shelby McEwen, AP Dhillon and WWE's Bayley.
Team Bonds has two professionals — two-time WNBA All-Star Allisha 'Goggles Lish' Gray and two-time NBA All-Star vet Baron 'Bart Oatmeal' Davis. Noah Kahan is the MVP of 'Stick Season.' Danny Ramirez will ball out as Joaquin Torres, maybe? Dylan Wang was a bucket in last year's game.
The rest of the team is Kai Cenat, Pablo Schreiber, Masai Russell, Mickey Guyton, Tucker Halpern and Rome Flynn.
What else is there to know? Quarters are 10 minutes each. Technical fouls are possible, apparently. There's a 4-point line, one yard behind the 3-point line. Recent MVP honors have favored fellow pro athletes like Micah Parsons (2024), DK Metcalf (2023) and fitness trainer Alex Toussaint (2022). The last artist to win the award was Common in 2020. Hart was the MVP four straight times from 2012-15.
Mark Jones takes the call for ESPN. Cassidy Hubbarth is hosting and Richard Jefferson will pop around.
Unexpected or hilarious Celebrity Game participant of years past:
(Photo from last year's All-Star Celebrity game: Trevor Ruszkowski / Imagn Images)
