The U.S. men's basketball team is staying on a giant luxury cruise ship during the Rio Games, but Chicago Bulls forward Jimmy Butler said the situation isn't what most people think it is.

"It's just a hotel that floats," Butler told Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune. "Everyone has a room. We have a meeting room, a dining hall. It's not just us. There are other people on there."

Because of distractions and security concerns generated by the high profile of the men's team, USA Basketball has placed players outside the Olympic Village since NBA stars began representing their homelands in the 1992 Games in Barcelona. This time, the U.S. men's and women's teams are sharing a 514-foot ship called the Silver Cloud, which is protected by walls of bulletproof glass and tight security. The ship, which guard Diana Taurasi dubbed the "boatel," was reportedly rented out by Cisco, which sponsors Team USA and is an Olympic supporter.

Four-time Olympian Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks told Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times that he hasn't seen many reasons for Team USA to be on anything but dry land. When asked Thursday to list the advantages, Anthony frowned.

"I don't know. I see disadvantages, I'll tell you that," Anthony said. "The beds are not big. The rooms are small. There are some disadvantages of staying on the ship."

The rooms aren't as bad as Australian basketball player Andrew Bogut's in the Olympic Village. Using the sarcastic hashtag #IOCLuxuryLodging, he tweeted a photo of himself assembling a plastic shower curtain with the caption, "putting together a shower curtain so we can shower and not flood the place."

Highlights on low

ESPN may consider itself the "worldwide leader in sports," but because of restrictions from non-ESPN rightsholders, the job of covering certain events gets complicated, most notably at the Olympics.

The network covers them, sort of. But NBC pays the International Olympic Committee big money for the right to exclusive content and limits the use of after-the-fact video.

In advance of this year's Games, ESPN laid out many of those limitations in a story posted on its media relations blog.

According to the post, the restrictions that ESPN and other non-NBC news outlets in the United States must abide by started Wednesday and run until 24 hours after the Closing Ceremonies on Aug. 21.

For example, SportsCenter and other ESPN shows can not air any Olympic highlights until NBC's prime time coverage ends on the West Coast. That means approximately 2 a.m. Central. Once that restriction passes, ESPN can show Olympic video on its news programs, but only to a maximum of six minutes per show, and only for 72 hours after the first use of such video is permitted.

ESPN will have daily on-site reporting from Rio, including for the first time in its history, entire editions of SportsCenter that originate from an Olympics site.

Olympics quiz

Who was the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 seven times at the Olympics?

Answer

Romania's Nadia Comaneci scored the first-ever perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She did it seven times, helping her win three gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

Sports on 08/05/2016