If you’ve ever followed a sports team on social media you know that teams will celebrate player birthdays in some form. Instagram, Twitter, maybe even Facebook — a quick graphic with some balloons and a “happy birthday” is really all you need to do. Many teams even schedule these posts out early in the year, automatically giving your players some love so you don’t forget.
But when teams struggle, this exercise in gratitude can become fraught with issues. This is the case for the Cleveland Cavaliers, as Wednesday is Isaiah Thomas‘ birthday. The now-29-year-old point guard is in his first season with the Cavaliers.
Thomas has been critical of the Cavaliers’ effort this year, and though he’s been actually on the floor for the team for just about a month he hasn’t played all that well. He isn’t shooting well, he’s not playing good defense, and as the Cavs continue to struggle and he continues to shake off the rust, well, everyone is getting frustrated.
That’s why it was very curious when Thomas’ birthday well wishes were posted to Instagram with the comments turned off on Wednesday.
The post has been liked by more than 70,000 people, but there are no comments to speak of. There are more than 300 replies to the tweet the team posted on Wednesday afternoon, though, and some of those might indicate why the team decided to flip the switch on Instagram and shut the forum down.
Happy birthday, @isaiahthomas! 🎈
I.T. 📸: https://t.co/13cVEUXUhZ pic.twitter.com/B4HGwITTDH
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) February 7, 2018
Here’s a few examples of why they decided to have comments off on Instagram.
https://twitter.com/JonnyWood17/status/961260104623550470
Self-owns are hard to take, but custom memes can be worse.
https://twitter.com/Not_Javian/status/961261474080546817
There were also throwbacks to the reports that Isaiah Thomas “led the charge” of claims that Kevin Love wasn’t actually injured, you know, the first time he was injured this year.
https://twitter.com/MarkusSultan/status/961260049015468032
You get the idea. No one is happy in Cleveland, and Isaiah Thomas hasn’t delivered yet for the Cavs. That means the man can’t even enjoy his birthday without getting some grief online.
