Pacers player has creepiest apartment in NBA

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — If the skulls in the bathroom and the spiders in the bedroom aren’t hair-raising enough, there’s the Chucky doll standing in the hallway, staring with that bulging eye and sinister smile. If all of that isn’t eerie enough, maybe the boa constrictor slithering about is.

In the world of the NBA – and probably just about any other world – Indiana Pacers forward Rakeem Christmas’ apartment is among the creepiest.

Suffice it to say, Christmas definitely landed the wrong holiday surname.

He should be Rakeem Halloween.

But this isn’t about Halloween. This isn’t for Halloween. This apartment, with its frightening decor, is Christmas’ year-round choice. He just happens to be into this kind of scheme.

“I like artsy stuff,” he says, smiling.

Artsy? OK. That’s one way to describe it.

After a long practice and team meeting Monday, 23-year-old Christmas gave a guided tour of the place he calls home. A place featuring a welcome mat with a skull that reads: “Beware. Enter at your own risk.”

As he attempted to explain it all, roommate Benny Birch tried to outline how he would describe Christmas’ tastes.

“I wouldn’t say scary,” said Birch, who went to high school with Christmas.

Creepy?

“Uh, just different. Just different,” Birch said. As he was saying that, Christmas pulled Riri out of her cage, which sits on a table in the corner of his bedroom.

Riri, named after singer Rihanna, is Christmas’ pet red-tailed boa constrictor. She’s little now, but soon will grow to six feet long.

It seems Christmas’ snake – and the decor – has a purpose.

“This Chucky doll is just to scare people,” he said.

Like the other night, Birch’s bed was a mess, so Christmas took Chucky and hid him under the sheets. When Birch got into bed, his hand landed on Chucky’s hand, and when he pulled back the sheets?

“He started freaking out,” Christmas says, again with the cackle.

The spider-embroidered pillows in his bedroom? The skull heads adorning his bathroom towels and rugs? His aunt got those for him.

“I just came home one day and my aunt bought them. I never ask her questions,” Christmas said. “She just figured I would like it.”