Larry Brown Sports

Lamar Odom and wife Khloe Kardashian reportedly are fighting over their reality TV future.

According to Hollywood Life, Khloe’s mom/manager Kris Jenner wants her daughter to do a new reality TV show with husband Lamar, but he is not interested.

The show would talk about the couple’s struggle to conceive a baby, and Khloe’s new role as host of “The X Factor.”

Khloe is said to be interested because she wants to follow her mom’s advice and plan, but Lamar is opposed for a few reasons. He reportedly feels their struggles to have a baby are a private matter, and he also reportedly feels like their previous reality show as detrimental to his basketball career. Blessed to have a shot with the Clippers this season, he doesn’t want to screw up the opportunity.

The report makes plenty of sense. In April, we shared a report that Lamar was cancelling a reality show so he could focus on his basketball comeback after a disastrous year in Dallas. It looks like he values his basketball career and is doing what he can to ensure he’s prepared for it. This is a great sign for Clippers fans, but they better hope the personal issues between Lamar and Khloe are sorted out so that he isn’t further distracted.

Hope Solo taking aim at “Dancing with the Stars” is nothing new, but one particular tidbit of information she revealed about the show in her new book could interest DWTS fans. In the gift that keeps on giving, “Solo: A Memoir of Hope,” Solo claims the show is fixed and that the producers decide which contestants remain from week-to-week — not fan votes.

As RadarOnline.com pointed out, Hope claims in the book that the public feud between her and dance partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy was good for ratings and helped keep her on the show after she was “scheduled” the be eliminated.

“Maks later told me that he had argued with the judges because he had been told we were going to be eliminated, that there was some secret memo going around that said who would be ousted each week,” Solo wrote. “He explained that he wanted to cause some drama on the live portion of the show so that they wouldn’t be able to resist keeping us around, hoping for more fireworks.

“It seems to have worked – we weren’t eliminated that week.”

As we know, Hope also revealed in the book that Chmerkovskiy once slapped her during practice, so if that’s true the drama went well beyond ratings and cinema value. Hope also once accused the shows producers of painting her in a negative light and criticizing her body type. When she was eventually voted off the show and finished in fourth place, Solo sounded like someone who regretted the experience and was glad it was over.

Sources told RadarOnline.com that the DWTS producers are furious with Hope and believe she “made up the allegations simply to sell books.” Of all the things she has said about the show, this is probably the most controversial accusation.

Stephon Marbury may have faded from the spotlight a bit since he left the NBA to play basketball in China, but his wife could be about to recapture some of it. According to a report from TMZ.com, Tasha Marbury is in final talks to join the VH1 reality series “Basketball Wives.”

Producers reportedly approached Tasha because she is an actual basketball wife — unlike some other cast members on the show — and is friends with some of the other “wives” who are already cast for the upcoming season.

Sources also told TMZ that this is the second time Tasha has been approached to appear on the show. Stephon supposedly nixed the idea the first time it came up, but it appears he has changed his mind now that he is in China playing for the Beijing Ducks. Perhaps the way the fans in China worship Stephon has lightened his mood a bit.

Tasha married Stephon in 2002, so they have been married for quite some time. If she has a tendency to say anything similar to the insane things Stephon says, the show’s producers have struck gold.

A talent agency reportedly plans to shop a movie about the Penn State scandal, and they reportedly have Al Pacino signed up to play the role of Joe Paterno.

Deadline reports that ICM Partners will be shopping the proposed movie next week. Pacino’s manager is set to produce it, and the movie will be based on author Joe Posnanski’s biography “Paterno,” about the Penn State coach.

Paterno was fired as Penn State’s football coach in November after the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal was revealed. Paterno reportedly had been working on a package to step down at the end of the year, but he was forced out earlier after the outrage grew over his role in the scandal.

Paterno died in January, less than three months after he was fired as head coach of the football program. He was 85. The NCAA later penalized Penn State and vacated 111 wins Paterno achieved as a football coach, dropping him from 12th to second on the all-time list.

Dateline has little doubt that the movie will be bought and come to fruition. Given all the interest in the subject matter, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it go into production before long.

Pacino has experience acting as a football coach from his role in “Any Given Sunday.”

H/T Pete Thamel

A most unlikely former All-Star is joining the cast of “Survivor” to compete on the latest season of the reality TV game show.

Jeff Kent, who was known throughout his MLB career as a surly character, will attempt to make friends with his fellow tribesmen in hopes of becoming the sole survivor.

In the video below, the former NL MVP says he doesn’t want to embarrass himself on the show:

So that’s your story: Jeff Kent, Blair from “The Facts of Life,” a bunch of ex-beauty queens, and several randoms will be competing on “Survivor: Philippines,” which debuts on Sept. 19.

Kent joins former NFL tackle Steve Wright and former NFL quarterback Gary Hogeboom as ex-professional athletes who have competed on the show. Former NFL and college football coach Jimmy Johnson also competed on the show, though he didn’t last long.

If Kent could withstand six seasons as teammates with Barry Bonds, we bet he can handle the elements of the Philippines.

H/T Eye on Baseball

This season has been nothing shy of a tremendous disappointment for the Marlins. After bringing in Ozzie Guillen and several high-priced free agents to play in their brand new stadium, Miami is currently dead last in the NL East and more than 20 games out of first place. It initially seemed like their mix of colorful personalities and winning potential would make for great television in Showtime’s original series “The Franchise,” but the latter portion didn’t work out as planned. As a result, the show will be ending a week early.

According to the Palm Beach Post, the Marlins fulfilled their agreement of eight episodes by airing a special preview episode back in April just after Guillen made his controversial comments about Fidel Castro. The final episode was supposed to be on August 29, but instead Wednesday will mark the end of the season.

“There was an option to do more but given the state of our season, it was decided that the original 8 would suffice,” Marlins president David Samson told the Post in a text message.

The show had some entertaining moments like Ozzie’s f-bomb festival before the first game of the season, but there’s something about a team with a 55-67 record that has fallen incredibly short of expectations that makes for poor television. Better luck next year — for both the Marlins and “The Franchise.”

Photo credit: Robert Mayer-US PRESSWIRE

How good is Kevin Durant? So good that he has trouble missing shots on purpose. Kevin Durant doesn’t miss shots — he bangs them down with an arena full of 20,000 people screaming and the game on the line. That’s why he had difficulty throwing up bricks while filming the upcoming movie ‘Thunderstruck,’ which is a story about a klutzy 16-year-old and a basketball star who switch talents.

“You guys know me, every time I get out on a court I try to get a little better,” Durant said during an interview with The Oklahoman. “I was out there making a few shots, but once they yelled ‘action’ I had to miss. It’s difficult to try to miss shots after so many years of trying to make them, but I figured it out. It worked out well.”

If I was a little bit taller and had to “figure out” how to miss shots, I guess I’d probably be an NBA star too. When you are used to doing things like this with your free time, it’s understandable that intentionally missing shots while filming a movie would be a difficult task. And that, folks, is just one of the many reasons why Kevin Durant is a boss.

Photo Credit: Mark D. Smith-US PRESSWIRE