Khloe Kardashian has been benched from her reality TV show.
Kardashian and Dallas Mavericks scrub Lamar Odom, who headline “Khloe & Lamar,” are ending their E! series, according to TMZ.com.
The duo won’t return for a third season of “Khloe & Lamar,” a spinoff off “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” so Odom can get his struggling NBA career back on track.
Odom will move back to LA full time and has hired a trainer to help him get in tip-top shape for his NBA comeback, according to the TMZ report.
E! officials weren’t commenting yesterday, but insiders say no definite decisions have been made yet regarding the show’s future. (It wraps its second season May 13.)
However, there was no mention of “Khloe & Lamar” when E! unveiled a slew of programming announcements yesterday.
Odom has taken heat in both LA and Dallas the past two years over his commitment to “Khloe & Lamar” and the impact it’s had on his playing and his on-court focus.
The Queens native, 32, spent seven mostly solid seasons with the LA Lakers — winning a championship in 2009 — before being traded to the 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks last December. He languished on the bench this season — starting only four games and averaging a career-low 6.6 points — before clashing with Mavs owner Mark Cuban early last month (after Cuban reportedly questioned his commitment to the team, asking him if he was “in or out”).
Odom was then put on the “inactive” list, giving Dallas — which is currently battling Oklahoma City in the first round of the NBA playoffs — the chance to trade him when the season ends.
That also put the kibosh on Odom playing for Team USA in the 2012 Olympics this summer in London. He was being considered for the team until his parting with Dallas, according to reports.
The expected end of “Khloe & Lamar” won’t necessarily mean viewers have seen the last of the couple on reality TV.
Khloe could still appear with big sister Kim and other family members on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” or with Kim and her other sister, Kourtney, on “Kourtney and Kim Take New York,” if that series returns for a third season.
And Odom is likely to appear with his wife on any of the roughly 58 Kardashian shows on E!. (The family last week signed a three-year deal to remain with E!.)
Both Khloe and Lamar, usually active tweeters, kept their Twitter silence yesterday regarding the reported cancellation of their show.
“Lam got me Starbucks . . . why does this make me so happy?,” Khloe tweeted yesterday.
“Khloe & Lamar” has lost about 200,000 viewers since last season, according to Nielsen.