What Exactly is a Basketball Wife?
Imani, Draya, Laura, Gloria, Malaysia and Jackie
Somehow, I accidentally watched the entire season of “Basketball Wives LA.” Oops!
I had seen some of the Miami version, but sadly those ladies have already been through three seasons, so now it’s just about fights, wearing earrings that look like they’ll pull out a lobe, and walking along cobblestones in foreign countries wearing stilettos.
Also, Evelyn Alonzo (arguably the star of the show) is now soon to be a football wife, as she and Chad Ochocinco are now engaged after meeting on Twitter. Yes, you read that right, Twitter. We’ll see, however, if a wedding actually happens, and for all I know they’ve already separated.
Anyway, I randomly saw a preview for the L.A. version, and I thought maybe L.A. would bring in some new blood, and, you know, some actual wives of basketball players! Not so.
The first actual player’s wife is Jackie, who is married to Doug Christie. The strange thing is, I’d actually heard about his wife many years ago, and that she was cray cray. I lived in L.A. for a number of years, and the radio station I listened to in the mornings on the way to work made fun of Christie’s wife constantly. This was way back when he played for the Kings and people actually knew that team existed. Also, there were just a smattering of reality TV shows, and I’m sure Jackie had no idea one day she’d be able to share her brand of insanity with the world on a weekly basis.
The rumor was that she rarely let Christie leave her side, and she was extremely overprotective of him. When marrying a basketball player I could see how that would be the case for sure. But as the show progressed and she planned her 16th wedding to Christie in 16 years, I could see how she got that reputation. By the way, it was odd that though she had planned 16 weddings before, she had no idea what she was doing and claimed this was the first wedding dress she’d ever purchased.
Aside from Jackie, Malaysia Pargo (married to Janero Pargo) was the only other woman in the show who is actually married to a basketball player. Gloria Govan, who was first on the Miami version, is engaged to Matt Barnes, but they split up at the end of the show. There is Kimsha, who was on about two episodes and not in the press picture, who describes herself as the “longtime partner” of Ron Artest; technically, not a wife.
Then you have Gloria’s sister Laura and Imani Showalter, both who are baby mommas of basketball players that they wouldn’t name (Gilbert Arenas and Stephen Jackson according to the magical Internet), but they are both estranged from their men and were never married to them. There was also one other woman they all hated in the beginning who never came back and I forgot what she had to do with anything. Last, but certainly not least, was the little firecracker Draya, who dated Chris Brown and also a number of basketball players (I haven’t been able to find names). She was many times affectionately called a “trick,” “groupie,” or “jump off,” mainly because she is young and really cute.
Honestly, I think it would be fascinating to see what really goes on in the life of a basketball wife. What’s it like to sit at games, accompany your man to events, or just plain old be married to a guy that is on the road for most of the season? That’s not quite what this show was like. In the very first (maybe second) episode Malaysia and Laura got into a knock-down, drag-out, weave-pulling fight in the middle of a restaurant. I learned that the women all have a lot of money and like to wear big shoes, but all these girls did was talk behind each others backs, until they decided to blame it all on Jackie.
The entire second half of the season was devoted to Jackie telling everyone what everyone else said about everyone, and then trying to blame it on someone else. I think, because honestly I have no clue what even happened. In the final episode, Gloria broke up with Matt out of the blue, Laura randomly decided to move to Orlando (she just moved to L.A. at the beginning of the season) and then all the girls gathered together to get Jackie to admit that she did something – although I have no clue what. Then, Jackie wanted the other girls to admit that they were the ones that did this horrible thing- which I still can’t identify.
In the end, I have to say my favorite people on the show were Draya and the little-seen Kimsha. Draya didn’t quite fit because she has never even been engaged to a bball star, just like Royce in Miami, a cheerleader dropped in the mix to start some trouble. Draya seems like she’d be fun to hang out with, and Kimsha was awesome because she stayed out of the drama and had no idea why everyone else was so petty, and seemed bored with all of the yammering. I’m guessing she won’t be asked back next season.
Another exciting moment during the last episode was that VH1 had a commercial for “Baseball Wives!” Which appears to be an entire new kind of train wreck that I can’t wait to watch. I tried to figure out who the wives were, but no luck so far.
But first, the Basketball Wives or should I say “wives” will have a yelling match on live TV at the reunion on Monday. Let’s see how that goes, and then I’ll decide if I’m in for the next season or not.
Loading ...