Basketball Wives Season 5 Cast

Some of your favorite Basketball Wives are on their way back to your television screens...and some aren't.

The 5th season of the popular VH1 reality show is slated to air on August 19th, but there's been some noticeable changes in the cast. One of the first things you may notice about the photo above is that neither Jennifer Williams nor Royce Reed are in it. Apparently, the two were axed from the show along with Kesha Nicols and Kenya Bell.

This season is set to focus on only 5 ladies: Suzie Ketcham, Evelyn Lozada, Shaunie O'Neal, Tami Roman, and newcomer Tasha Marbury (wife of former NBA player Stephon Murbury).

Shaunie promises that this season will focus more on personal growth within each of the ladies as opposed to constant arguments and fights which is good to hear. Shaunie told The Grio:

“You’ll see a lot of growth. Just filming this season I felt the growth. Sometimes I’d look at the ladies and be like ‘I’m so proud of you. You handled that so well.’ This is like a mirror. We’ve been able to look at ourselves for four seasons, and now going into the fifth, it’s like ‘I gotta do better.’”

“I’m a mom of two girls. And my daughters see me… I never want to show them anything that I wouldn’t want them to represent as a black woman. I can’t control what everyone else does, I can’t control anybody else’s behavior, but I can control mine.”

Personally, Jen and Kesha were my favorites, so I'm a bit sad to see that they aren't a part of the new season, but I'll still be tuning in to see the ladies grow and be able to portray themselves in a more positive light like they wanted.