Photo by Todd Williamson/E! Entertainment/NBC via Getty Images
There are plenty of famous faces playing in the 2023 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game.
The 2023 NBA Celebrity All-Star game takes place on Friday, Feb. 17 at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, UT. and will be broadcasted on ESPN. This year, in addition to the celebrity coaches, there will be team captains who will play alongside the roster as well, sort of like the actual rosters.
This year has a lot of former athletes in the fold, as well as entertainers. Let’s take a look at these teams:
Team Smith
Ryan Smith—honorary team captain and Governor of the Utah Jazz. He’s the co-chair and founder of Qualtrics, an experience management company in Provo.
Kane Brown—the five-time American Music Award winning country artist is a huge sports fan, and has appeared as a guest picker on College Gameday before (he’s a huge Georgia Bulldogs fan). He played in the game last year as well.
Cordae—the rapper, recording artist and tennis star Naomi Osaka’s boyfriend recently released an album, From a Birds Eye View, in Jan. 2022.
Diamond DeShields—The Dallas Wings All-Star is one of the better players in the league who will add some actual basketball experience to the team.
Calvin Johnson—Johnson is a Hall of Fame wide receiver who played for the Detroit Lions. He was known as ‘Megatron’, and did things like this:
Lots of stuff going on. Important to remember we’re only a few days away from finding out if Calvin Johnson gets a Gold Jacket on his first try.
Lions Twitter: Give me your favorite “uh, what’d I just see here … ” Calvin Johnson memories. There are many. Gifs or otherwise. pic.twitter.com/vneWlDkx2J
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) February 3, 2021
He can definitely still dunk.
Marcos Mion—Mion is a Brazilian TV host and actor, and hosts the popular Brazilian weekend show Calderiao.
The Miz—WWE Superstar The Miz is very popular in these types of games. He’s been in the MLB celebrity game and loves the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Albert Pujols—The recently retired MLB superstar played for multiple teams over his career, but is known for being a St. Louis Cardinal. Here’s Pujols running, if you were intrigued.
Everett Osborne—Osborne is an interesting addition to this game, because the NBA lists him as an actor. This is probably due to his role in Chicago Fire and Sistas. However, Osborne is a good basketball player compared to the average actor. He played Division 1 basketball at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and has played three years of basketball in New Zealand.
Ozuna—The Puerto Rican singer and recording artist. He’s one of the best recording artists in Latin American history, selling over 19 million records.
Guillermo Rodriguez—Rodriguez is the correspondent for the Jimmy Kimmel Show who doubles as the show security guard.
Sinqua Walls—Walls also has basketball experience, playing for the University of San Francisco. However, he’s mostly known for his acting, appearing in Teen Wolf, Friday Night Lights, Grey’s Anatomy and Power. He’s also going to be in the reboot of the movie White Men Can’t Jump.
Team Wade
Dwyane Wade—Wade is the minority owner of the Utah Jazz and is married to actress Gabrielle Union. Oh yeah, he’s also one of the NBA’s top 75 players of all time and is bound for the Hall of Fame. Bow down to the GOAT (yes I’m a Heat fan).
Nicky Jam—Nicky Jam is a Latin American singer and actor.
Jesser—Jesser is a popular content creator, with about 11.5 million subscribers to his YouTube channel. A majority of his content is with NBA basketball games.
Simu Liu—Liu is an actor best known for playing the titular character in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings.
Hasan Minhaj—Minhaj is a comedian and actor known for his comedy special called Patriot Act. He’s also taking over as the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, which was previously hosted by Trevor Noah.
DK Metcalf—DK Metcalf is a wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks. Metcalf has said that he’s the best basketball player on the team, and can also do this:
Janelle Monae—Monae is an actress and singer who was recently in The Glass Onion.
Arike Ogunbowale—Ogunbowale is a star player for the Dallas Wings who’s averaged almost 20 points per game over her career in Dallas. She also owns one of the greatest shots in college basketball history.
21 Savage—21 Savage is a rapper who was most recently in a collaboration with Drake on the album Her Loss. His most recent album, Savage Mode II, sold 171,000 album equivalents.
Ranveer Singh—Singh is an actor who works in Hindi films, but is also the NBA Brand Ambassador for India.
Francis Tiafoe—Tiafoe is the 15th ranked men’s tennis player in the world, and had a star making performance against Carlos Alcaraz in the US Open. Tiafoe went to the University of Maryland.
