Mookie Betts is widely known as a jack-of-all-trades off the baseball field. He has a podcast, he’s a pretty good bowler, and he’s an avid basketball fan. On Tuesday, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported that he’ll be coaching the NBA’s Celebrity All-Star Game on Feb. 13. NBA’s All-Star Weekend is being hosted in Los Angeles at the Clippers’ Intuit Dome.
Full rosters have yet to be revealed, but among confirmed participants are ESPN basketball reporter Shams Charania, rapper GloRilla, and producer and LA native Mustard.
Mookie Betts has been named a coach for this year’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game in Los Angeles 🤩 pic.twitter.com/UZJlCgTPil
— MLB (@MLB) January 28, 2026
Betts’ love of basketball also extends off the court; he was friends with the late Kobe Bryant, who the Dodgers continue to honor (sometimes multiple times a year) every season since his passing in 2020.
Betts has frequently referred back to Bryant’s “job’s not finished” rallying cry and did so as recently as the 2025 NLCS, when the Dodgers held a commanding 3-0 lead in the series over the Brewers. LA went on to sweep the series on the back of Shohei Ohtani’s scoreless six-inning start (and he went 3-for-3, all home runs, for good measure).
Dodgers News: Mookie Betts to coach NBA Celebrity All-Star Game, Dave Roberts wants to manage 2028 Olympics team
Dave Roberts is also gunning for a coaching job outside of the Dodgers. He told Jack Harris of the new California Post that he wants to manage the USA’s 2028 Summer Olympics baseball team, calling it a “no-brainer.” He made a slightly arrogant but still salient point: “In LA, I want to manage that team. No one’s more relevant to do that than me.”
The 2028 Olympics will be held in LA from July 14- 30. The Dodgers have ties to the event; both Dodgers owner Mark Walter and partial owner Magic Johnson were among leadership of Governor Gavin Newsom’s LA Rises initiative alongside 2028 Olympics chairman Casey Wasserman.
It’s still unclear if MLB players will be allowed to participate in the event, although many have expressed interest. Because it falls right around All-Star festivities, commissioner Rob Manfred is going to have a lot to puzzle out with the schedule in 2028 if he’s going to allow players to sign up for their respective countries.
2028 will be the first time baseball is back at the Olympics since 2020, when Japan took the gold medal, the US — headlined by major leaguers Shane Baz, Joe Ryan, and David Robertson — took silver, and the Dominican Republic took bronze.