SOFI TUKKER’s Tucker Halpern to Play In 2025 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game

Before SOFI TUKKER filled festival stages with their unapologetic dance anthems, Tucker Halpern was a 6'9" basketball phenom at Brown University, carving a path toward the pros.

Basketball was his complete identity, but when a mysterious illness benched him for seven grueling months back in 2011, his plans unraveled and he withdrew from Brown. In that void—and in the throes of depression—he stumbled into electronic music, and the world got SOFI TUKKER.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Halpern is finally suiting up for the NBA—sort of. The chart-topping DJ and producer is hitting the hardwood for the 2025 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, fulfilling what he says is a lifelong dream.

"We all grow up with crazy dreams, mine was to be an NBA All-Star," Halpern wrote on social media. "I worked for 22 years pushing myself to the physical limit to get as close as I possibly could, but it was out of reach for many reasons."

It's a poetic twist: the very thing that sidelined his basketball career became the catalyst for his musical success, and now music is his ticket back to the court. Halpern, who was his high school's all-time scoring leader and a McDonald's All-American nominee before captaining his college team at Brown, admits he’s not the athlete he once was, but that's beside the point.

"Today, many years later, I get to say that music has brought me full circle to fulfill my biggest dream, to play in the NBA (Celebrity All-Star Game)," Halpern continued. "If you know me you know how much this means to me. I’m not the player or athlete I once was, but I’m doing my best to get back into it and try not to embarrass myself."

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He's set to hoop in Oakland alongside Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Noah Kahan, Orange Is the New Black actor Pablo Schreiber, streamer Kai Cenat and country music artist Shaboozey, among others. Halpern's team will be coached by 2 Chainz and baseball's all-time home runs leader, Barry Bonds, while his opponents will be led by NFL legend Jerry Rice and influencer Khaby Lame.

Halpern opened up about his playing days in an interview with EDM.com last summer, when we sat down with him and his SOFI TUKKER bandmate, Sophie Hawley-Weld, to discuss their third album, BREAD.

"Seeing myself as an artist... it was a hard transition," Halpern said. "When I first told people, 'I want to make music, I want to be a producer, I want to be a DJ, I want to be an artist,' they kinda laughed. They're like, 'No, you're in this box. You're an athlete, you can't do that.' And it wasn't until there was enough people believing in it that accepted me as an artist or accepted that I wasn't just an athlete pretending to be an artist."

The 2025 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game is scheduled to air on ESPN Friday, February 14th at 7pm ET.