How an adorable Instagram baby pic triggered an NBA mini-crisis

Be careful what you 'gram.
 By 
Sam Laird
 on 
How an adorable Instagram baby pic triggered an NBA mini-crisis
Gordon Hayward shoots over Steph Curry this season. Credit: GEORGE FREY/EPA/REX/Shutterstock

Like many young moms, Robyn Hayward loves to share photos of her little tykes on Instagram.

Unlike many young moms, Hayward's husband is one of the NBA's most sought-after free agents.

Which made an adorable photo Robyn recently shared media a bit of a problem.

Robyn's husband is Gordon Hayward, who is a star for the Utah Jazz but set to test the free-agency market this summer. He's got plenty of suitors, and a long-running rumor has the Boston Celtics as favorites to sign him this summer.

One of the Celtics' logos is a shamrock. And that's why this photo Robyn posted over the weekend was mighty suspicious for the conspiracy-minded.

Was this a secret signal that the Haywards are Boston-bound? Was it a not-so-secret signal that the Haywards are Boston-bound? Was it -- THERE'S GOT TO BE A MESSAGE IN HERE SOMEWHERE, RIGHT?

The internet being a place where hysteria frequently triumphs over reason, NBA fans apparently got all kinds of creative in trying to parse a hidden message from Robyn's Instagram -- so much so that she deleted the photo soon after posting it.

She even posted a subsequent update explaining the purchase as just a totally normal thing a mom would buy for her baby, not some fourth-dimension secret message.

See, folks? Take a deep breath. Nothing to see here.

We think.

Well, we're pretty sure.

Maybe.

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Sam Laird

Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.

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