Houston Rockets Slight Jeremy Lin In Recruiting Pitch To Carmelo Anthony

The Houston Rockets welcomed free agent forward Carmelo Anthony to Houston for a visit Wednesday, and in making their pitch to the superstar small forward, the Rockets unintentionally (or perhaps intentionally) made things pretty awkward for Jeremy Lin.

Outside the Toyota Center, there was signage with Anthony wearing a photoshopped Rockets jersey. This in itself isn't anything special -- the Bulls did the same thing earlier in the week.

But what made Houston's pitch slightly awkward was that Anthony was wearing the No. 7 jersey, which happens to be the same number worn by his former Knicks teammate, Lin.

It's been widely speculated that should Anthony agree to sign with the Rockets, the team will have to trade Lin. As Anthony himself once put it, the Rockets signed Lin to a "ridiculous" three-year, $25 million contract, and they'll need to clear it off their books if they want to bring in a player of Anthony's caliber.

So is this sign simply an oversight, or is it a subtle way of saying that Lin is on his way out? Either way, for the time being this creates a pretty uncomfortable situation.

Lin posted this tweet in response to the slight: