Stay at this hotel? Team won’t bite
OKLAHOMA CITY — They slept tight and the bedbugs didn’t bite. The Clippers wouldn’t let them.
Fully aware of Cleveland guard Kyrie Ir ving’s experience with the tiny creatures at the 105- year- old Skirvin Hilton here last month, the Clippers booked the nearby Sheraton before their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday.
“Once that happened,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said of an incident that caused Irving to prematurely leave a game after a sleepless night, “I think everyone pretty much who was [ staying] there reacted and decided to change places.”
The Clippers previously stayed at the Skirvin, which is said to be haunted. Forward Wesley Johnson had a possible brush with the supernatural while there two years ago with the Lakers.
He went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and noticed the bathtub was empty. When he walked back in in the morning, the tub was f illed. And the stopper wasn’t even in place.
“It was full of water,” Johnson said. “It was crazy.”
The Skirvin is said to be stalked by “Effie the Housekeeper,” who purportedly had an affair with the hotel’s original owner in 1930 before being locked in a room to avoid scandal and killing herself and the couple’s child by leaping out the window of a room on an upper f loor.
Most NBA teams were willing to disregard the legend. Bedbugs apparently are another matter.
Of the two teams that have visited Oklahoma City since Irving’s encounter, neither has stayed at the Skirvin.
“They’re in a tough position,” said Clippers center Cole Aldrich, who spent his f irst two NBA seasons with the Thunder. “I can imagine they lost a lot of business with teams coming through because of that. I’ve never had any [ bad] experience there.
“It’s always been a nice hotel, but I can feel for them because to have a player like Kyrie come out and say, ‘ I had bedbugs’ and they came out and confirmed it, it hurts your business.”
Johnson said the possibility of bedbugs didn’t bother him; his wife is another matter.
“She was like, ‘ Hell, no,’ ” Johnson said. Olympic dreams intact
Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of USA Basketball, said Blake Griffin’s having punched team assistant equipment manager Matias Testi would not affect the Clippers forward’s chances of making the U. S. Olympic team.
“I don’t think we have any issues with any of our players regarding personal conduct,” Colangelo told reporters. The Clippers suspended Griffin four games for his role in the incident in January at a Toronto restaurant.
Griffin and teammates Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan are among the 30 f inalists vying to make the f inal 12- man roster that will be announced this summer in advance of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Etc.
Rivers said forward Luc Mbah a Moute could return this weekend against either the New York Knicks on Friday or the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday. Mbah a Moute has been sidelined since Feb. 29 by a lacerated left eyelid.