Fans of the German soccer team Hannover 96 trolled new Celtics’ guard Dennis Schroder after he asked fans to help decide his new number.
When Dennis Schroder decided to ask fans to help him to decide his next jersey number with the Celtics, he probably didn’t imagine it backfiring on him so comically.
In March, Schroder reportedly turned down an $84 million contract extension from the Los Angeles Lakers. In June, it was reported that he was seeking over $100 million in free agency — he got $5.9 million on a one-year mid-level contract with Boston. And since then, the jokes have been lobbed at him endlessly.
So when the former Lakers guard took to his own mobile app, DS17, to have fans choose a new number for him (since his usual No.17 is retired in Boston), some fans took this opportunity to continue the troll agenda against Schroder and answered with the No. 96.
Why wouldn’t Dennis Schroder want to wear No. 96?
On the surface, ‘96’ just seems like a regular number — maybe a tad unusual, but regular nonetheless. However, these fans had a slightly more sinister agenda: Hannover 96 is the German football club that rivals Schroder’s hometown club, Eintracht Braunschweig. Once voting began for Schroder’s new number, Hannover 96 fans ran up the numbers — or rather, the number, 96.
In a post on his app, Schroder acknowledged the jest by saying, “As you can probably imagine, coming from Braunschweig, number 96 is not necessarily my favorite number,” however, he decided to keep the number in the top five selections for fans to vote on. The other numbers are 8, 71, 80 and 84.
The voting for the jersey number ends on Sep 17.