Pablo Torre Finds Out - We Stayed at the NBA's "Haunted" Hotel — and Discovered Something New

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

It is a century-old legend wrapped in a basketball conspiracy: The Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City was the visiting team's resting place of choice. Except the 10th floor was also (allegedly) home to a housekeeper who's been spooking all-stars for more than a decade. In a crossover Halloween spook-tacular, Pablo sends Oddball hosts Amin Elhassan and Charlotte Wilder on a ghost-hunting sleepover to investigate the foremost paranormal story in sports. They returned with data from the hardcourt to the toilet seat, plus a feisty Paul Pierce... and one gigantic inflatable horse costume. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Like all great ghost stories, this one is actually true. Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraff Kings Network. It took me a strong, like, two or three minutes to get the headphones just right. Yeah, what are you dressed as, I mean? I'm father time.

As you can tell, I have a long beard and I have a clock that I'm wearing around my neck, a la Flavor Flav. And also, Father Tom apparently is a Yankee fan because he's got a Jeter jersey on. I was going to say, it looks like your Willie Randolph got stranded on a desert island. You are an orca? You know what it is. Yeah. I laughed before we started recording because I remember the last time you wore that, Jesse the Body Ventura started telling you his 9-11 conspiracy thing. I got in all sorts of trouble when I questioned 9-11.

Well, I've been vindicated because in the chapter, the new chapter in the book, the 9-11 report has 28 redacted pages that we're not allowed to see that George Bush redacted them. And then I got art but make it sports into a Georgia O'Keefe vagina. Really? Yeah. Nice. So pretty proud of it. They do a good job over there.

They do, and it's hard to dispute it. And you do look like Giorgio keeps vagina. I mean, maybe not hers, but definitely one of hers, so to speak. It's art. Where is Charlotte? Charlotte's on her way. She's still getting dressed into her costume, which is kind of a little bit of a giveaway, I guess, for what we're doing today. Oh, Lord.

You got it. I did not. The... Sorry, I'm late, guys. There's traffic. My horse got stuck in it. I want the audio audience to understand. That the sound you're hearing,

I actually don't understand the sound that we're hearing. What is that sound? That was the sound of a compressor, I guess, inflating the inflatable horse. I've never worn one of these inflatable. I mean, ridden a real horse before. You've never worn an inflatable horse before. Right.

I do like the tassels, the leather, the suede, excuse me. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Authentic. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be honest, this isn't, like, sitting on the cruise? Compressor is maybe not the most comfortable thing in the world, but...

It would be bad if we died in a compressor fire. The great compressor fire of 2024. No, if we died in a compressor fire, dressed as this. That's, like, I'll die in a compressor fire. Your beard is the most flammable thing in here, so you're going first. I don't think the orcas necessarily, despite its species, as fire retardant as you might expect, either. I gathered you here today for a special mission. An oddball, Pablo Torre finds out, collaboration,

a quest for journalistic truth about ghosts. Because I have a ghost take. My ghost take is simple. I would love to see a ghost so that I could then believe fully with my intellectual capacity in God. Really? That is, wow! This is so much deeper an episode

that I thought we were going to do. You think the witness of paranormal activity, is a gateway to guard himself. Shout out to Raiders of the Lost Ark. A gateway to believing in what should not rationally be believed. So I want that door to be opened. Yes, to the divine, to the supernatural. I would like proof that I shouldn't trust my rational brain.

The problem is that my rational brain has been winning all of these arguments for 39 years. You know, I relate to that so much. Pablo because like my opinion of ghosts was like I don't think so but also like that there's a staircase in my grandmother's house in the back bedroom that led to nowhere and that thing like there was energy there I believe in the feeling of like this feels weird but I have never ever seen anything like I'm with you I so badly want to like see a ghost so I can be like yep there they are so you're ghost curious Yeah. I mean?

I have a very simple theory when it comes to the existence of ghosts or lack thereof. Ghosts are the spirits of dead people with unfinished business. Maybe they died in kind of untoward ways or whatever, right? Yeah, maybe they hadn't totally finished dressing up in their inflatable horse costume. If that's the theory, then wouldn't we be inundated all the time by the ghosts of people who died in the middle passage, you died in the Holocaust, who died in the Trail of Tears, and the Conquistadors. There are billions of people who have died in such f***ed up circumstances. Oh, no, we're going to get old man Carruthers who, like, he lost his sweetheart.

Like, those are the ghosts we're going to get? Come on. I have never been more afraid to respond to a ghost take. I mean, it's a pretty good one. He raises some valid points. Yeah. No, or not. Father time's been around.

He's seen a lot of. I've seen some things. He's seen a lot of shit. And so I needed to send you guys out to investigate the foremost paranormal story in sports. The Legend of the Skirvin Hotel. For people who don't know about the Skirvan, this is an NBA story. This is a real story insofar as there has been lots of coverage about it. How would you mean as a former NBA executive guy who's on the road all of the time,

Yeah. Explain the legend of the scurvy. All right. So like all great ghost stories, this one is actually true. Ooh. Right? So in 2008, the Seattle Supersonics, who had been sold a year earlier to a group of businessmen from Oklahoma City,

moved to Oklahoma City, right? And as you might imagine, Oklahoma City, not exactly booming Metropolis. Right. So in the NBA, in the collective bargaining agreement, there is a certain class of hotel you're allowed to put your team in. Right. Typically, it's like a Ritz Carlton.

Yes. Those type. Well, the closest thing to a hotel of that stature in Oklahoma at the time in 2008 and for quite a while thereafter was the Skirvin Hotel. An old hotel is built in the early 1900s? Yeah, it's 113 years old. Mm-hmm. It's art.

It's a really gorgeous building, and it was founded by this guy, W.B. Scurvan, William Scurvan, an Oklahomaan. And this was a place where a lot of stuff went on. It was, there was... Apparently. Yeah. It was during prohibition. So there were bootleggers running booth through there. There were ladies of the night, as they might have called the... Father Time knows what's up.

Yeah, father time was there. I've seen one or two of those. Yeah. And so you walk in and you think about the old grand hotels of the... the old west, right? And it looks like it. They've got like that second floor banister where you know the madam of the house at Lino. It's like, come on, cowboys. We got them upstairs right here. Father time is saucy. Well, you know. Yeah, Father Time's got a little bit of pizzazzed. Popped a hip out. And so, so, you know, and the elevators, the outside doors are this very old school

field. So as soon as you walk in, you feel like you're transported through time. But Pablo, the Scurvan has a deep, dark secret. You know W.B. Skirvin, who I mentioned, Big Bad Bill? Well, I don't know if people call him that. He was just womanizing his way around Oklahoma City. And the legend is that he had an affair with a housekeeper named Effie. Effie got pregnant. And to prevent a scandal, W.B. locked her in a room on the 10th floor of the hotel.

Effie had the baby, allegedly went mad, jumped out of the window, holding the infant. I mean, like horrific stuff. And she has apparently been haunting the hotel ever since Pablo. And there is, just for the record here, a lot of documented testimony from NBA players on podcast, various articles throughout the years, including one from Wesley Johnson. Yes, former Syracuse great, top three pick. That's a very generous scouting report from Father. He was. He was great at Syracuse. What do you guys want from me?

A bit of a bust is all the same. I'm a good orange fan. I support all the New York area teams. I forgot that regional New York fandom is also part of Father Times character. Wesley Johnson said he woke up, walked in the bathroom, found his bathtub suddenly filled with water. Yes. We've heard a lot of stories like this. I mean, Paul Pierce told us that he heard noises in the hallway and, like, bang,

and running and walking sounds. In my room, I remember the floor I was on, I think, maybe eight or nine floor. Now, I heard noises. Which would make sense. The 10th floor is the haunted one. I don't know if it was somebody running or somebody walking or banging on the door, but I did hear noises. But I'm just not afraid of that stuff. I mean, I just was like, well, if they're going to come in and get me, come get me.

I'm really glad that Paul at the end of that says, you know, fight me, basically. I like the idea of Paul not being afraid of ghosts or still believing in them enough to challenge them to a duel. Yeah, exactly, that's it. Paul Pierce, notably someone who had allegedly sh-h-himself once. Oh, that's a different PTFO episode. A very different one. We should do that, though.

Of course, the problem with all of that testimony is that it's not from you guys. Because the whole point of this is to make the, I think, most irresponsible expense report in the history of this company. And so you guys were put on assignment. We stayed at the scurban for a night to check all of these alleged hauntings out for ourselves. To find out firsthand. Are ghosts real? And if so, will they fight Paul Pierce? Insert dramatic music.

All right, so I just need you to fully understand before we proceed any further here, why Amin and Charlotte are the perfect pair of correspondence for this particular Halloween mission. Because beyond co-hosting Oddball, Metal Arc Media's basketball culture, show, airing Mondays through Thursdays on YouTube and the Draft Kings Network, nobody I know knows more about NBA hotels than Amin al-Hasson. He worked in basketball ops for the sons, worked for the Knicks before that. He basically still lives on the road. And Charlotte Wilder, of course, is not only extremely thoughtful.

She has been roving the country as a reporter for years, covering and also being weird. So earlier this month, PTFO assigned both of them to Oklahoma City, where the Thunder, who were playing the rockets, are now projected to be the best team in the Western Conference by far. And we had them check in to the Skirvin. The Skirvin, whose website, scurvanhilton.com, wants you to know that it is, according to the landing page, an enormous type,

Oklahoma City's most charming host. It is pretty charming. Yeah, I mean, they're not lying. So what's check-in like? Check-in, I... So first of all, I'm in the over-driving up to the hotel, and we turn a corner, and all of a sudden I can see it. And I've been staring at pictures of this thing for weeks at this point, and around the corner, and I see it. And it's this old Gothic art deco, southern, you know, rising from the plains of Oklahoma,

and we turn the corner, and I immediately, just like, my shoulders tensed up. It looks creepy. It's also majestic. Oh, yeah. It's gorgeous. Sure. And in the inside, it is very, like, you could tell, this is the craftsmanship of a century ago, and things are all handmade and with care and delicacy,

not like all the match-produced stuff that we see right now. But, Bob, to go back to what you called it, the most charming Oklahoma City Hotel or whatever the little slogan is. That's right. I think one of the funniest things about the scurvan that I noticed is that they don't advertise in any way. that this hotel is haunted, which is not like other experiences I've had.

So, quick aside, when I worked for the Phoenix Suns, we had training camp in San Diego, the hotel we stayed at was the Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island. This is the hotel that they famously in the exterior is what they shot, some like it hot,

the movie with Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe back in the day, right? My favorite movie as a child, which might tell you something about me. This explains a lot. You having the same cinematic taste as father time does track. I do love that movie.

So anyway, so when you go to the Hotel Del Coronado, which we stayed at, and we had players complain of supernatural activity, one of the things is in the gift shop, they're telling you all about it. Hey, and by the way, this room is haunted and da-da-da-da-da. And you can buy memorabilia, and I survived the night with whatever her name is, and all that stuff. They lean into it 100%. It is a central part of their marketing, along with some like it hot,

and also you're in San Diego in this wonderful hotel on the beach, right? I walk into the scurban, and I believe I was the first one there. Yeah. I walk in, and I'm expecting on the walls, we're going to have all sorts of Effie was here, and this is the story of Effie. Right. Nothing. Not only that, our producers instructed us explicitly.

Do not bring up anything about ghosts when you're on the property. They don't like it. So I just do need to jump in here to say that, yes, of course, we here at Pablo Torre finds out, did reach out to officials from Hilton hotels asking simply, is the Skirvin Hotel haunted? And as of Halloween Eve, we had not heard back, but I will say that the silence, this whole corporate renovation of a legend,

does remain haunting. The only thing that is any evidence that anything happened there is the key to the room is framed on the wall with absolutely no explanation. With no caption, no explanation. They have all these old pictures and this is the time when the Miss America pageant was here in 1918. The only picture, the only thing hanging up on the wall that has no reference or explanation is the key to 1015,

which is the room where allegedly Effie took her effing life. And so where did you guys stay? So Amin checks in. I check in. And she gives me a room on the seventh floor. the woman behind the desk. I say, great. I go up to my room, and I walk in, I was like, this isn't haunted. I was like, it feels, and this feels lovely. The sun was shining through the curtains. I was like, great. And I was like, feeling good. I said, maybe I'm not going to be

that scared after all. And a mean text me and he says, what room are you in? And I said, you know, 706 or whatever. And he was like, uh, you're not on the 10th floor. And I was like, oh, right. So I called downstairs and I say, hey, do you have anything on the 10th floor? And she was like, uh, yeah, I have one room. And I was like, oh, thank God and also, oh no. And I go downstairs and she gives me a room 10.06. I go upstairs, walk into this room, and immediately I was like, oh, this feels very different. I could feel an energy.

So what is the plan here? We send you guys on an assignment to break through the blockade of the wall of silence around the scurvins' whole mythology. And, I mean, what do you do to get to the bottom of what's really lurking in? inside these rooms. Well, the first thing we did after we all got settled in our rooms is we got on a Zoom call with a Medium. Medium's name was Dave Campbell. He was a lovely guy who offered to help us out and get on a Zoom. He does, apparently he does readings through Zoom of people's hotel rooms.

We're not the first people to hire this man. No, no, no. He does this. This is his career. His career is talking to people about, he said he can speak. to the other side. He helps people connect with people who've passed on. And most importantly, he loves going to haunted hotels. He investigates haunted hotels. He travels the country. He told us, though, he had never heard of the scurvan, nor had he done any research

whatsoever before he did the reading of our room. He said he actually didn't know the name of the hotel we were in. He knew we were in Oklahoma City, but he didn't know where we were staying. So we get on this Zoom. And it's crazy. It was crazy. The first thing he says, we do a means room first. This is a portal area right there in that room. Okay.

So there should be like that's where they go in and out. So that's where you might experience them tonight coming in and out. That's the entrance into that room. And also I do feel like there's somebody that jumped out of window. Sorry. Somebody jumped out of a window a long time ago. Okay, so this is pretty interesting, right? Effie was in room 1015.

She jumped out the window, took her life, and her baby's life. I was not in room 1015. Ladies and gentlemen, where's my camera? I was in room 1017. Directly next door. Oh. So this is the part that's really important to point out. because any skeptic, myself included, could say, well, clearly he knew he was going to do this hit with us.

Right, Googled. He did some Googles. Haunted Hotel Oklahoma. How many could there be? Oh, someone's scurvin. Okay. Oh, someone jumped out the window. Cool.

He didn't know I was on the 10th floor. And he didn't know I was in the room next door to the room in question. That is an important piece of information that, by the way, we did not confirm or deny with them. We just kind of was a, huh, okay. and went on. Dave, Charlotte, had what to say about you. I'm, like, getting scared thinking about this. So it's like, okay, time to do my room.

And I'm, like, giggling, I'm so nervous. You know what I mean? I'm, like, laughing because I'm so nervous about what's going to happen. So I turn my camera around. Dave looks at my room, and this is what he said. There's history on the property. as I also see cowboy type and saloon

more like that, saloon period, dress and prostitute type. I don't know if that's what they called him then. So, Pablo. I think I'm connecting some dots now. Why I'm dressed like a cowboy? That would be the first dot.

He also said the first thing he said when he saw my room was, oh, a lot of actually. activity in here. I also feel like there was a murder in this room, or do you know of the murder? I don't know. Do you guys know of a murder? I don't, I have not heard anything about a murder.

I'm getting it's gunshot too. In this room, in this room. I think it's that room. Cool, cool, cool. Usually, like, if there's a murder or something, that energy goes into the walls, the floors, the ceiling. It's like a record player. And so his saying all of this, and I walked into the room and it had smelled like tobacco and a perfume, I am not kidding you. Because of the room 7-0, whatever, that I was in before, didn't smell like that.

And I walked down, I was like, that's kind of a weird smell. I do feel like you probably might smell a fragrance as well, like perfume. I definitely smell something in my room. Like a perfumeish? Yeah. Like I walked in. I walked in and I was like with someone in here. Yeah.

And I can corroborate. I was just going to say because I went to Charlotte's room. Well, I was immediately like, guys, please come in here. I'm freaking the fuck out. I could definitely smell like there is a fragrance in there. That was not present in my room. So I should establish that you guys called Zoomed with Dave, the medium, during the daytime.

Yes. So the fact that you're already kind of freaking out, while there's light streaming through the curtains, the sheer curtains of the scurvan, leads me to wonder what nightfall was like. I was so scared. I immediately FaceTime my husband, made him stay on the phone with me while I brushed my teeth.

I was so terrified, Pablo. I just want to say, I'm just a journalist in an orca costume in a safe studio. You guys sound ridiculous. You weren't there, dude. Look, I'm admittedly an imaginative scarty cat, but like, I felt something. Amin, what did you feel? Sleepy. We had a big steak dinner.

It was awesome, too. Look, Oakland was super cheap. This expense report thing was a bad idea. No, no, no. It's like the cheapest dinner anyone's ever expensive. A 16-ounce rib-eye for like 30 bucks And then makers mark old-fashioned for $9 And that wasn't a special of the happy hour

That's just the prices out there I mean, it was amazing So when I got home, I turned on the team Father Times Yelp review is out of control Five stars for those ago The cattleman, that's the name of the place? Yeah Five stars. If you're in Oklahoma, you got to go take that place out

It said the options for state He said T-bone It said President Bush's favorite cut When he would come to Oklahoma So obviously I was like, well, that's the funny thing. I have to get that. And it was a really good steak. Anyways, I get back to my room.

I'm like, all right, cool. Let's catch some ghosts tonight. All right, let's see what's on TV. And I just, oh, and I just knocked out. I fell asleep. The next thing I knew it was morning time. I was like, well, I guess that was that for the scary haunted room. Good journalism.

I mean, yeah. I slept pretty soundly. Although I did dream that night that Dan Levitard fired me. So I wonder if there's like talking in my sleep. And then I heard, there was a vague sound of like dice rolling. It was a hot dice game in Charlotte's room, apparently. I just heard it above my head.

I don't know if it was someone dropping something on the floor of the room above me. I heard something. The ghost of Michael Jordan and that security guard. I mean, Charlotte was hearing a lot. Yes. Did you hear anything? So, as I said, I went to sleep. I was out like a light.

It was the greatest, one of the best nights of sleep I've had in my life. I woke up in the morning, however, to a very strange sound. Now, let me go back to what the medium told us. He told us, you might smell some things. He also told us what other bit that I think is, this is one of the things that made me a little less skeptical. He says one of the things that ghosts, the ghosts are, they're not bad ghosts. It's just like mischief.

They're tricksters. They're tricksters. They're messing around with you. I don't know what room this is. I might figure it out later, but there's a younger male who's probably between 18 and 23, who was like a stowaway. He was a runaway, stowaway, Joker.

He plays tricks on people. He moves things. He hides things. And he's not harmful. He's harmless, but he's just very practical joker type. So, so one of the one of the ones. of the ghosts likes to turn on faucets in the sinks. Now, I was told before we went to Oklahoma by one of my buddies with an assistant coach in the

NBA, that his experience was, went to the room, faucet was on, turned it off, sat down, faucet turns on again, goes in there, turns it off, leaves the room, comes back, goes to sleep, three in the morning, wakes up, the faucet is on again. That story is not published anywhere. I don't even know if I told my co-hosts that story. So when this guy tells me about faucets turning on, I'm like, how did you know about that? Right.

All right, fast forward. It's Thursday morning. And I'm like, what is that noise? It kind of sounds like, blah, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, like construction, but it's not construction. I know because there's no construction happening. It's also not coming from next door or it's just above. So I'm like, maybe I'm just sleepy. And I look at the thing and it's not picking up levels.

I'm like, whatever. Then I get up, I go to the bathroom. And then I hear it again. And I'm like, what? So then, all right, this is the part where I get a little graphic. I do my business in the bathroom. Talk about a bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-ha. It's a bo-bo-bo-ha.

It's a bo-bo-ha. So as I'm sitting there. Another time. I'm hearing it, and now it's loud. And it goes for about like 10 to 12 seconds. And then it stopped. So, you know, I'm like, okay, let me record it next time. And every time I tried to record it, it would stop right as I stopped recording.

And I started getting a noise. Like, all right, either do the noise or don't do the noise. And finally, I caught it, and I think we have a clip of it here. Do da-da-da-da-da-da. You hear it? That is the most menacing video of someone taking a sh-h-h-that I have ever seen. Now, this... That is...

Okay, that's... I'll grant you that that was spooky. One other thing, which Amin was there for, after we got off the Zoom with Dave, they're all in my room because I'm freaking out because I'm like, cool, I'm in the murder room. Awesome. And Amin comes in, and Dave had said to us, like, if you want to just let them know you're there,

say, hey, you know, I'm here. We'd love to see you. We're friendly. He was like, don't antagonize them. Don't say like, hey, ghosts, you know, screw you. Whatever. And so I was like, you know what, guys, I'm going to try it. So we're standing there, and I said, hey, we're here.

I would love to know if you're out there, we're just saying hi, like, we don't want to bother you. Thanks for letting us be in your space. I said, send us aside if you're out there. And immediately, the refrigerator goes on and starts buzzing. Like, Amin was there. I was there. The refrigerator did come on.

We haven't told you the craziest story we heard, though, Pablo, while we were in Oklahoma City. So far, right, what I'm getting is a lot of mechanical errors. Well, I don't. You know, not a great Yelp review from the perspective of this place has plumbing

and electrical issues. I don't know that, I don't know what the sound that I heard was mechanical in nature. Because nobody else heard it. It wasn't the AC kicking on. It wasn't a fridge.

It was just there. I mean, what you heard there is kind of what it was. It was just everywhere. It wasn't scary. It was just kind of like, what the hell is that?

And nobody had an air. answer. And so this is the point where we knew we needed to turn to a different source. Another reporter, in fact, who happened to be in town for this Rocket's Thunder game and who has also been on the road all around the league for decades now. My name is Adrian Chavaria. I am with the Houston Rockets. I've been their Spanish radio broadcaster for 29 years. And Adrian, crucially, had nothing to do with Amin and Charlotte's overnight investigation, or our entire mission here. But what he told us about his own stay at the Skirvin

turned out to be incredibly detailed. He went to bed at 10 o'clock. He was staying at the Skirvin. At 2.17 a.m. he woke up to pee. He turned the light on. He went to the bathroom. Turn the light off, went back to bed, closed his eyes, felt the lights on,

opened his eyes, and there was a mysterious glowing, female figure at the end of his bed. He looked at the clock. It was like 218 or 219. The toilet was still filling back up with water, but he wanted proof from inside the hotel. At some point, I said, well, maybe I can grab my phone real quick and see if it's, if I can take a picture. So people, you know, I can believe it and people can believe it as well. So by the time I I turned to the nightstand to grab the phone and I look back, this person, this, this ghost was literally on top of me

like floating face to face and I still get goosebumps telling the story I still get my hair that sticks up the back of my neck and I didn't know what to do and again people have asked me how's the face or can you describe it and I can't it was just a you knew it was a woman it was kind of glowing

and I guess I wasn't her type because she got real close to my face looked down up and down like checking me out and then all of a sudden she just moved towards my right and went through the wall and that was it

number one that guy was not joking I grant him that yeah this was not a performance you know hire an actor number two I like how his friends were like

was she a butterface though no and Adrian was like no actually she turned me down she thought I was the butterface she checked him out and was like I'm gonna go through the walls

I just want to ask you guys this question bluntly then having gone through all of this having stayed at this hotel overnight having been it sounds like charlotte uh in your case been traumatized on some level by this hotel do you believe the scurvin hotel is actually is my intellectual brain demanding accountability do you believe it's actually haunted hold on hold on hold on hold on paula we have another theory this isn't this isn't scooby-doo we're gonna go scuba do was that scuba do was that your This isn't Scooby-Doo. This isn't Scooby-Doo, Pablo.

We have analytics. So you're refusing to tell me what your actual feelings are about this, in truth, because you have a statistical case to make. Yeah, since Pablo, the fund removed to Oklahoma City, they have the seventh best home record in the NBA. They win 64% of their games at home.

We have the research right here in a league where home court advantage doesn't really matter that much anymore. Isn't as pronounced as maybe it once was? You know, and you got to think about it. The Sonics with Oklahoma City 2008. 0-809, they were awful. That's how they got to draft James Hardin' Third overall.

Right. Right? And then they have your Hardin-Westbrook-Durant era that goes however many years. And then it's Durant and Westbrook. And then it's just Westbrook after that. And now you've got a couple of years there where they're not so great.

Then Chris Paul gets traded. They're all right that year. He gets traded the year after that. now they're bad. Total Rebuild. And through it all, they still maintain the seventh best win percentage in the NBA. At home. I give credence to that, not simply because, I mean, looks kind of like James Hardin right now.

In a few years. In a few years. But also because you're right, home court advantage is not really so much a thing anymore. It's like an old school sort of phenomenon. But again, like, there are lots of other reasons why that could be the case. you know, home cooking, the fans. I don't need to tell you myself, from my theories, I can let the New York Knicks tell you.

See, you're a Nick fan, Pablo Torre. It used to be. The Spookiest story of all. The Sixers might have something to say about that, what's happening with them. But we need to go there. January 2010, the Knicks are staying in Oklahoma City for two nights. There's there to play the Thunder.

And multiple NICs report, that the scurvin is haunted. The night before the game, Eddie Curry says he slept for only two hours. Eddie Curry, if you don't know, seven foot tall, bear of a man, right? Let's take a look at what Eddie Curry had to tell us. I went to use a bathroom. I came back out. My TV was on already.

And I'm just like, no, that's kind of weird. I know for a fact I did not turn my TV on. And it was on some, like, crazy channel, like some spooky devil-type. I'm like, nah, bro. Exorcist-type. I'm like, no, this is not. So at that point, I hit Nate. I'm like, Nate, what's you doing?

It is late at night. It's already like 10, 11, 12 at night. I stayed in Nate's room until he kicked me out. He literally was like, Eddie, I cannot stay up any longer. I go back to my room. It was definitely the worst night's sleep I ever got. I definitely found myself reading the Bible that night. And so I was like, oh, shit, I got to talk to Nate Robinson.

I've got to find out from him if this is true and what his experiences were. So, I got on the phone, I texted Nate Robinson, I said, hey, we're doing a story about this hotel. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to read to you verbatim what Nate Robinson's response was to me. I'll give you one quote, that hotel, I'll never stay there ever again. It sounds like the Knicks didn't do great if that's his reaction to their experience staying over. Well, Pablo, that's very prescient of you because the Knicks got blown out 106 to 88 the next day.

Again, the point here being that the Knicks were terrible generally, right? I think that year, let me look this up real quick, it's hard to type of these fins. The orca fin on the computers. Okay. 29 and 53 is what the Knicks were. This was the David Lee Nix.

I remember getting a cardboard poster outside of MSG and David Lee was like the centerpiece of that. That is not a joke. That is a real fact. Okay, Pobble, you're skeptical, but we have more analytics here. You're a numbers guy. You believe in science. I want to be all of these things. Okay, so Lou Williams, who was on the Lakers at the time, this is wild. He chose to pay out of pocket to stay at a different hotel,

would not stay at the scurvin reportedly because he didn't want to, and I quote, mess with Effie. Okay, the next day, the Lakers lost by 40, the rest of the team stayed there, Lakers lost by 40, but their leading scorer was Lou Williams. Bingo Bingo. Again, though, the Lakers with Lou Williams is their best player pretty bad. Okay, sure, but we have another horrifying story that has to do with the Lakers. October 2016, the week of Halloween, the Lakers stay at the Skirvin,

everybody but Larry Nance and Lou Williams, who again, paid out of pocket to stay somewhere else. But Meta World Peace, run our test, told the Orange County Register that he was watching the movie Money Monster. Meta recalls, and I quote, the ghosts were all over me. They touched me all over the place.

I'm taking one of the ghosts to court for touching me in the wrong places. The next day. Wait, wait. So they swiped right on meta. Oh, they sure did. Left on Adrian. The next day, though, after Mehta says he was assaulted by this ghost,

he scored zero points and the Lakers lost by 17. Meta only played three minutes and 43 seconds, guys. Well, maybe because he was so tired from not sleeping, he was like, I don't have it in me today. I just don't think, journalistically, that the terrible Knicks and the terrible Lakers are enough here to be dispositive of this case. Well, consider the case of three-time World Cheney.

champion, Danny Green, who's played in Oklahoma City, 25 times. Right? He averaged more minutes per game in games at Oklahoma City than what his career average was everywhere else. And yet, his points per game were down 20%. But still, this is, we're simply connecting, like, disparate dots here. I don't need to tell you. I'm going to let Danny Green tell you himself.

Well, the times that I remember playing there, they were really good. They had a good team. So they had Russ, K.D. and James. But I think when it comes to athletes and we're based off mental and routine, when something throws that off, it definitely has an effect. And it could be anything that you may or may not believe in. But either way, hearing those rumors, those things stemming from the, you know, when there's smoke, there's fire.

The smoke that you hear about, like the smoke that you see about these things could affect you even if you don't believe in it. So to be clear, Danny said, I never experienced anything and I don't believe in that stuff because I'm in control. But he said, look, you're talking around the league about a bunch of guys, many of whom are in their early 20s. They're not that far removed from childhood. It is totally believable that they could believe in these things and that could disrupt their rhythm and their routine and affect them the next day. I even talked to an assistant coach who was on that staff on that Nick team that had those issues. The Nate Robinson. Yes.

And I said, well, coach, did you? He said, I didn't see anything. And I said, well, what do you think it is? He says, these guys from the plane to the bus ride to the hotel, all they're doing is telling ghost stories to each other. One time this happened, one time that happened. So what do you think happens when after at least an hour, if not more of this, we all go to our rooms, the lights are off, and it's all quiet. and now you're all by yourself. Of course they're scared.

They're kids. So what you're saying is that the issue with the NBA is that a large number of these players are basically Charlotte Wilder. It occurs to me that you've been evading this question that I've been trying to get the answer to to find out about this entire time,

which remains, do you believe that the Skirvin Hotel, personally, do you believe this, is actually haunted and instead you presented me all sorts of statistics and anecdotes and yes videos and interviews but how do you guys actually feel about this okay so obviously everybody's heard how spooked i was and terrified the entire time but since coming back to new york i've been like all of that was explainable all like the

i heard dice rolling someone just dropped something on the ceiling above me there the fridge went on okay the fridge went on fridges do that like all of these things can be explained and i have felt like it made me realize the power of what Danny Green was talking about, what the assistant coach on the Knicks was talking about, where we went there to find ghosts. We were in it. I was scared. We talked to this medium who told me stuff.

And I just like, you get into this mindset. And it also sort of is like the closest to childhood I've had as an adult in a long time because it's like, well, when I was a kid, I believed all this stuff. I thought there was a monster in my closet and I would have to befriend it so that it didn't, you know, eat me or whatever. And so it's this feeling of like it's more fun to believe. But Pablo, I think coming back, I'm like, I don't think so. But also it's not about us.

This is about these NBA players who believe that this is haunted. Yeah, and that's one of the things that Danny Green talked about. He told the story of a teammate who, by the way, we did digging. It was Tim Duncan. He didn't tell us, but sorry, Danny. We've thrown our job over here. Tim Duncan was accosted by spirits at a hotel. They say that in the Bay Area when they were over there.

there to play the Warriors. And they never stayed in that hotel again, but the only reason they stayed there was because every other hotel was booked up. And that is, the crux of it is that there were options available in the Bay Area that made it so they don't have to stay at that hotel

anymore. In Oklahoma, there were no other options for years and years and years. You had to stay at the scurvin. Wait, so there's this other new hotel now in which no one is having these issues. No one's having these issues. Now, it just so happens, the thunder are really good right now,

so that home record is safe for now. But what you just hinted at, though, is this larger phenomenon of there being other hotels that NBA players authentically sincerely believe is f***ing with their performance in games. Well, I'm glad that you said that so I can make this correction, right? You said NBA players. In Oklahoma, there's one pro sports team in tennis,

the Oklahoma City Thunder. So it's only NBA players who are telling these stories. In Milwaukee, however, there's the Fister Hotel. And NBA teams have stayed there, but you know what else stays there? MLB teams. Mookie Betts. The Dodger went on Jimmy Kimmel the other day, and he explained why he wouldn't stay at the Fister Hotel in Milwaukee.

I'm pretty sure everybody in here is familiar with ghosts. And I'm pretty sure most people in here would be scared if ghosts were in your room. I would. And so, and I don't know if I'd be scared of it. I'm going to assume I would. Mm-hmm. But I just would prefer not to find out. Not only that, the head of security for the thunder

when we were in Oklahoma City told me that he'd had an experience where he heard a bell ringing outside his door at the fister in Milwaukee, opened the door, there was nobody there, and it was a long hallway. Someone could not have disappeared that quickly. Okay, this now feels like you guys are angling for another expense report in Milwaukee.

Well? I would rather go through the table. Del Coronado. I mean, it's in San Diego. The Padres play there. So, in so many words, what I found out today is that I personally still cannot intellectually bring myself to believe that ghosts are real. You weren't there, dude.

You weren't there, man. Justify this entire reporting trip. But what I do genuinely believe is that the athletes who stay at these allegedly haunted hotels in the way that the brain can interfere with your actual performance an athlete are suffering negative consequences because of these quote unquote ghosts which leads me to I think a larger conclusion which is that the way to save any other struggling franchise is to get your own haunted hotel. Why are we not doing that?

Why is every city not already in possession of a deep. deeply haunted hotel with some housekeeper or cowboy or whatever the fuck. Oh, Pablo, this is clear. This is a small market advantage. You can't do that in New York? Too many hotels! You can do it in Milwaukee

and Oklahoma and other these. These other small... Memphis! Memphis, you're on the list. You need a haunted hotel, Memphis is haunted. They have a haunted hotel for sure. We just got to find it. Amin and Charlotte, thank you for your reporting and happy Halloween. Thanks for sending us to

Oklahoma, Pablo. Thanks for giving me nightmares for the rest of my life. Thank you for the rabbi steak, the best rib I ever had. And those makers mark old-fashioned. Nine bucks. Who'd have known? To quote the guy who loved that steak, mission accomplished. This has been Pablo Torre finds out.

A Metal Arc Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.