The NBA’s Tweet Calling Dave Chappelle ‘A Fan’ Made People Very Mad Online

The Celtics stunned the Cavs in Cleveland on Sunday night with a 111-108 buzzer-beating win despite being without star Isaiah Thomas and the fact that the Cavs had blasted Boston in the first two games of the series. The win suddenly made the series intriguing, at least briefly, as the Thomas-less Celtics had an offensive explosion in the second half behind Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley’s play, while the defense gave LeBron James and the rest of the Cavs fits in the fourth quarter.

James’ 11-point performance was his worst in 58 playoff games and the Cavs appeared completely disinterested in Game 3, but their effort was not what fans were upset about during the game. The Cavs may have been disrespectful to the Celtics (and it came back to bite them), but that was fairly understandable after how the first two games went and Thomas being out. The lack of respect for Boston and the relatively poor effort late in the game wasn’t what had fans on Twitter riled up during Game 3.

Instead, it was a tweet from the NBA’s account showing Amy Schumer and Dave Chappelle sitting courtside, referring to Chappelle as just “a fan” next to Schumer that had people upset.

https://twitter.com/NBA/status/866466541105238016

This is a pretty basic Twitter joke construct. Call the more famous person next to another, less famous person “a fan” to have a little fun and get some people to yell at you. The problem with doing this as the league Twitter account and not your personal account, is that the league account has no history of doing this and people assume there’s an idiot running social that has no idea who Dave Chappelle is.

I’d bet anything that isn’t the case and that this was just a joke, but that doesn’t really matter because people were getting mad, red, and nude online about this tweet.

— David Binkowski (@dbinkowski) May 22, 2017

@NBA @NBAonTNT wut pic.twitter.com/fkXQvdbJNZ

— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) May 22, 2017

— alex medina (@mrmedina) May 22, 2017

@wildebeast913 @NBA @NBAonTNT fireable offense. possibly a lethal injection scenario for the culprit

— max (@LatherRinseRT) May 22, 2017

@NBA @NBAonTNT FOH

— Karla Rodriguez (@ohkarli_) May 22, 2017

— Davenport (@MeBleedGreen) May 22, 2017

@NBA @NBAonTNT Some uncultured intern is losing *they* job tonight.

— Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) May 22, 2017

@NBA @NBAonTNT holy shit did you misjudge your audience. delete your life

— cx (@cxcope) May 22, 2017

The lesson, as always, is to never tweet, especially if you’re a league account trying to make a Twitter joke out of nowhere.