{"id":252077,"date":"2026-07-25T23:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/252077\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T23:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:32:07","slug":"military-basketball-all-stars-go-head-to-head-in-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/252077\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Basketball All-Stars go head-to-head in Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Eric Smith’s basketball skills brought him back to Philly for the weekend to compete in the MBA All-Star Game.<\/p>\n

MBA, which stands for Military Basketball Association, was founded in 2017. It is focused on providing basketball programming for active duty military members and veterans.<\/p>\n

Their goal is to use the sport to combat challenges that military members face, such as PTSD, and promote the prevention of suicide.<\/p>\n

MBA has brought several events to Philadelphia over the last few years, culminating in today’s All-Star Game at Saint Joseph’s University.<\/p>\n

Smith, a lifelong 76ers fan, was especially thrilled to come home when he heard the news about LeBron James coming to the city.<\/p>\n

Watch the video above to hear his reaction to the news, and to see the military athletes in action.<\/p>\n

To access the Veteran Crisis Line<\/a>, Dial 988 then Press 1, or text 838255.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the Military Basketball Association, visit their website.<\/a><\/p>\n

RELATED: ‘Rock to the Future’ changes lives through music in Philadelphia<\/a><\/p>\n

Philly music student Adessa Lewis went from getting bullied in the past to finding the right instruments to ‘Rock to the Future.’<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Eric Smith’s basketball skills brought him back to Philly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[107702,101616,5956,4424,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-252077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-107702","tag-all-star-game","tag-basketball","tag-military","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}