kind of a non-story, but still a bad look image-wise...

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics-2016-so-team-usa-walks-into-a-rio-brothel-and-040537797.html?nhp=1

Olympics 2016: So Team USA walks into a Rio brothel, and ...

Dan Wetzel
Yahoo Sports columnist

Aug 06, 2016 12:05 AM

RIO DE JANEIRO – TMZ reported Friday that a group of Team USA men’s basketball players “accidentally” went to a famed brothel here.

Apparently, the group, which TMZ said included DeMarcus Cousins, DeMar DeRozan and DeAndre Jordan, thought they were just going to a regular spa and merely had a drink (the place plays music, welcomes only male customers and has a full bar). They then – and only then – figured out they probably shouldn’t be there.

“They realized it wasn’t the right place for them and immediately left,” a source told TMZ.

Sure, sure, sounds totally plausible. Who the heck was the “source” peddling that story? Draymond Green?

Now, this story is begging for a full breakdown – and we’ll be pleased to offer it.

Before that, though, let it be said we personally could care less and we contain no outrage that the guys decided to have a drink – or pretty much do anything else – inside a noted Brazilian brothel. Whatever.

Personally, as both an internet sports columnist in need of easy columns to write and a fan of the NBA in part because of this exact kind of recurring comical absurdity, this is exactly what I want out of my Olympic basketball team. That crew was getting boring when the suburban dad known as LeBron James was in charge and they’d pass the time between blowout victories playing poker and watching “Pitch Perfect.”

This is the good stuff. It’s far more entertaining than watching them beat China by 40 or 50 points on Saturday.

However, USA Basketball under Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski has spent considerable effort trying to rehab the image of NBA players competing in the Olympics. There remains a portion of America that foolishly wants us to “go back to sending the college kids.” This, despite the fact that said college kids would get wiped out, let alone college kids who are just as likely as anyone else to wind up in this kind of establishment.

So image-conscious USA Basketball officials probably spent Friday night sitting in a darkened room, weeping as they took pulls out of a shared bottle of Jack Daniels. This “Dream Team” already had the headlines of Green posting a picture of his, well, you know what, onto social media. Now this.

USA Basketball does all it can to avoid such things. For instance, the players aren’t housed in the Olympic Village, which wouldn’t work for understandable security and comfort reasons. I believe the Portuguese word for Olympic dorms is “Dellavedova.”

Instead, USA Basketball rented “The Silver Cloud,” a 514-foot, 196-suite luxury cruise ship to serve as a home away from home. It’s docked in the waters off Rio, nowhere near the other regular athletes. It has pools, gyms, hot tubs, beds built for 7-footers, bars, a cigar lounge, plenty of places to play cards and hang out.



It even has … a spa. Oops.

USA Basketball made this so the guys would never have to leave the boat – or have any reason to want to leave the boat – except to practice and play.

And yet … they left the boat.

And wound up at the Termas Monte Carlo. Now, how anyone thought the Termas Monte Carlo was just a spa – a spa better than either the one on the luxury cruise ship, or a spa with people capable of giving honest, physical treatment better than the highly qualified USA Basketball training staff – remains an unanswered question.

From the outside, the first floor of the Termas Monte Carlo presents itself as an anonymous, windowless, half-stucco dump. You’d be hesitant to go in there and have them fix the muffler on your car, let alone provide deep tissue work on a world-class athlete.

The place is famous/infamous in Rio, as a simple internet search would reveal. It has a somewhat racy website. It’s been written about, reviewed and the subject of various law enforcement busts through the years.