There is no doubt that there are some things in the world that humans can't explain. We have often heard about people who have encounters with paranormal things such as ghosts.
One of those people is former NBA superstar Tim Duncan. In 2014, Tim Duncan stayed at the Claremont Hotel, which is supposedly haunted by a 6-year-old girl who died in the hotel. During their time there, Tim Duncan and teammate Jeff Ayres had an encounter with what seemed like a ghost. Houston Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times relayed the words of the two players on their experience.
The Spurs were in Oakland last weekend to play the Warriors and stayed at the Claremont Resort. According to local history, the Claremont Resort is haunted by a 6-year-old girl who died in the hotel.
After checking in, Ayres and Duncan made their way to their respective rooms, which were next to each other.
“I took my room key,” Ayres told the San Antonio Express News. “I could hear stuff in the hallway, like people in their rooms. So I’m thinking people are watching TV or whatever. So I get to my door, and my key doesn’t work, but it sounds like there’s somebody in my room. Like I hear a little baby, not crying but making noise. I’m like, ‘What the heck?’ I keep trying my key and it doesn’t work. So I go downstairs to get a new key, and I tell them somebody’s in the room.
“So they call the room, and nobody answers. They’re like, ‘We can get you a new key and send you up with security and make sure nobody’s there, because there shouldn’t be anybody in there.’ Then they’re like, ‘We’ll just get you a new room.’ It was the creepiest thing. I heard a couple of other guys heard babies in the hallway, kids running down the hallway. Creepy. I really heard voices and a baby in the room, and there wasn’t anybody in there. It was crazy.”
Duncan agrees. “I heard a baby in his room. There was somebody or something in his room, yeah. I definitely heard something. It wasn’t creepy, because I assumed it was really somebody in the room, and they gave him the wrong room. But when they told me the story the next day about calling up there and no one in the room, it’s at that point you get chills. I’d rather not stay there again.”
Their recollection of the events of that day is definitely creepy and unsettling, and one can understand why Tim Duncan stated that he'd "rather not stay" at the Claremont hotel again.
The San Antonio Spurs did end up winning the NBA championship in the 2014 season, though, so it's clear that this hotel stay didn't affect Tim Duncan's performance on the court. The 2014 championship made Tim Duncan one of two players to win a championship across 3 different decades and solidified his legacy as the best PF to ever play the game.
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