This is a sports term. Riding the pine means sitting on the bench.
Not sure how they felt it applied to hookers...
But I'm sure it was because Lamar was in the NBA that they chose that terminology.
It just means they are suspended/not working for now.
A wood coffin? He's telling them to talk to him or die?
I think there are a couple of metaphors being mixed up here.
First sex workers have often been referred to in terms that relate to athletic events, probably because of the physical exertion involved on the part of the professionals for the titillation and entertainment of the customers. It has the effect of distancing their activities from being sordid or criminal or debasing to having some flare, or pizzazz, or value. My theory is that, in a sort of halo effect, borrowing the terminology gives sex workers a legitimacy and a humanity that is often denied them by the very people who use their services.
As an example, back in the Victorian period, one of the many terms used to describe sexual congress was "bed sport." In the early 20th century, brothels in the U.S. could be referred to as Sporting Houses. Such a reference is in the title of the brilliant Jelly Roll Morton's "Sporting House Rag" in 1923, and, to some extent the pseudonym by which we know him. Another example can be found in the name given to the drug dealing character of Sportin Life in Gershwin's
Porgy and Bess. This was a reference to his association with the seamier side of life. (A bit of contemporary insight into the relevance of the work from an opera singer who has sung the role in 150 productions can be found at
http://www.chicagonow.com/rendezvou...orting-life-of-porgy-and-bess-jermaine-smith/ He details how his mother saved him from becoming a real life Sportin Life.)
So the association of the terms describing prostitution being taken from sports jargon is a very old one. It can be a logical progression to use the slang terminology associated with sports as a shortcut in describing scenarios dealing with prostitutes as though they were players participating in a game. Which, I guess, on some levels is how it can be viewed.
When a player is suspended from a game, that player often sits out the rest of the game on a bench. Sports reporters and team members and fans often say s/he is "riding the pine". which also refers to the assumption that most benches are made of wood, and frequently the wood is pine. Rather than being on the floor or on the ice or on the field, the player is forced to observe and to be seen as not measuring up to the rest of the team. The term strongly implies that the player was not performing well or was not following the coach's orders.
If IIRC, grabbing wood just refers to the players having to sit out. They may be called back into the game in the future if they measure up, but for now they grab those wooden benches and hope they don't get slivers. The two sex workers involved are out of the game at that brothel. They are probably not being paid while suspended. It appears that their boss is unhappy with their inability to follow the rules he has laid down and that he's made his dissatisfaction very clear. He's separating himself from their actions, and is going into a protection mode to save his own skin. And, after all these years of having his own "reality" series on his bunny ranch, he's undoubtedly smart enough to have customers sign documents saying that they've read his rules, agree to abide by them, and so on.
I don't think that in this case "grabbing wood" means anything more than that the two women have been suspended without pay until they come to him and give him all the information he wants from them. To threaten those women in an interview with national media outlets would be suicidal, and he's a survivor.