Vator wrote:Initially in this thread, I said that it was frustrating that this wasn't an issue when it happened to Patrick Beverley last year and I'll stand by that. Whether or not it is the classiest thing to do as far as using a player's number to recruit a player that wears that particular number is up for debate, but they did it to a player last year and nobody blinked. Now it is headline news. I posted a video showing Howard wearing a 12 jersey in a video they used to recruit him. People like to point out that the circumstances are different because Lin is being mentioned in trade talks or whatever.
I would hazard that people see it as less of a big deal with Beverley for the following reasons:
Howard's signing was not contingent on the Rockets getting rid of Patrick Beverley. Beverley had just finished a rookie campaign appearing in 41 games on a minimum deal. The Rockets didn't have to jettison his deal to sign Howard, they could quite easily sign both of them and sort out the jersey number issue later.
With Lin, it's not just about him being "mentioned in trade talks" - every man and his dog knows that if Carmelo Anthony wants to come to the Rockets they will first have to rid themselves of Lin. They are not mutually exclusive situations. For Houston it's one player or the other, there is no alternative. They are hyping the potential acquisition of a player who wears Lin's number, using a mock-up of said player in a Rockets uni wearing that number, knowing that Lin will have to be traded to make the mock-up a reality.
It shouldn't be up for debate. It's disrespectful - there's no other way to describe it.