Morey: Lin Traded if ‘Melo Chooses HOU

The Houston Rockets created some controversy today when pictures of Carmelo Anthony wearing a No. 7 Rockets jersey were put all over their arena in preparation for the team’s meeting with the superstar. That wouldn’t be a problem, except that is the number of Rockets point guard Jeremy Lin, who is still on the roster despite constantly being mentioned in trade rumors. Lin expressed his disappointment on Twitter and Daryl Morey responded to Mark Berman of Fox 26.

“It’s always a challenging situation during free agency,” Morey said. “You are always having to recruit players and there might be current players at current positions, might be people with the current numbers. It’s unfortunate that it’s often hard to handle. Reality is, it’s standard practice.When we went after Chris Bosh a few years ago,we had him in Luis Scola’s number. When we went after Dwight Howard he had (Pat) Beverley’s number. I get the sensitivity and I hate that it creates some hurt feelings. I don’t like that, but that’s obviously Carmelo Anthony’s number, that’s the number he wants. He told us that. Bottom line, if Carmelo comes Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin have to be traded. It’s just math. It’s not personal. My job is every day figure out how to win. Sometimes it creates challenging situations.”

via Mark Berman of Fox 26