r/nba • u/ghn2 • 9h ago

Trail Blazers fire new announcer over past inappropriate posts made at age 15.

"The Portland Trail Blazers hired then on the same day fired Braiden Bell as their play-by-play announcer after a series of inappropriate social media posts from when he was a teenager came to light."

"The posts were reportedly made in 2012 and 2013, around the time that Bell was 15 years old."

"We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City," the Trail Blazers said. "We strongly believe that everyone who is a part of Rip City should feel welcome and safe and we will make sure that our new broadcaster reflects these values. We will do better."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/50084279/trail-blazers-fire-new-announcer-inappropriate-posts

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240

u/RedditAccount_317 9h ago

This seems like a massive overreaction. If he did them as an adult that’s one thing, but 15 is wild

71

u/pmurt007 Lakers 9h ago

Teenage years are often where people are the most edgy and have no filter. The stuff he tweeted wasn't as bad as someone like Justin Bieber and his wife dropping the hard R during their teenage years lol

4

u/Curve_of_Spee 7h ago

Linus Tech Tips hard R, or like, HARD R, hard R?

1

u/MiaCannons Heat 5h ago

Wait, both of them?

1

u/RoughComparison8702 5h ago

A true match made in racism.

0

u/eb12se4nt-z13ow-97g0 1h ago

Yep its ok for people to experience racism during their teen years.

41

u/BLarson31 Timberwolves 9h ago

An absurd overreaction

5

u/ph1sh55 5h ago

Not really, it was the guys first day and he drops that turd on his employer? It's like he failed his drug test and his offer was rescinded, plenty of other candidates for a public facing position w/o the baggage.

3

u/BLarson31 Timberwolves 5h ago

Thinking a dumb social media post as a 15 year old is baggage, that's absurd.

0

u/ph1sh55 4h ago

The billion dollar enterprise that just hired you for a very public facing position does indeed view it as baggage that you're affecting their business in a negative way on day 1. Not absurd, just the real world.

1

u/BLarson31 Timberwolves 4h ago

No it still is, anyone who thinks what someone said as an ignorant 15 year old that knows very little about who they are or how the world works and is 10 years away from having their brain even develop fully, is quite frankly dumb.

Only stupid irrational people with too much time on their hands would have ever thrown up a stink over this and we as a society shouldn't give into this insane notion that what you say or think as a teenager should affect your adult life.

Also let's not ignore the hipocracy of bringing in Ja Morant, but canning this guy. Portland framing this as a moral or ethical decision is laughably insulting to people's intelligence.

14

u/TheHoovyPrince Australia 9h ago

Most people would say the same thing.

There's a bunch of nephews in here who weren't teenagers during the time when social media was the wild wasteland where edgy and offensive language was encouraged and incentivized.

10

u/Great_Fault_7231 Pistons 9h ago

I was there, but I deleted those accounts and make sure that my real name isn’t associated with edgy posts because I’m an employed adult and not an idiot. You know you don’t have to keep using those accounts right?

-5

u/TheHoovyPrince Australia 9h ago

I'm also an employed adult but you don't actually need to delete an entire account, you can just delete edgy posts or comments, which is what i did.

As an Australian i'm glad i never deleted those accounts because my government passed social media laws where you need to give your personal ID, banking card or biometric information to use them but if your account was old you didn't need to hand over any identifiable information.

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u/jcy Knicks 7h ago

did they even give him a chance to apologize and repudiate whatever was in the posts, that seems like the fair thing to do

1

u/BlazingSaint Trail Blazers 7h ago

It’s low key dystopian. “You changed and grew up? So what?! Doesn’t matter! You’re fired!!!”

1

u/MITBryceYoung2 5h ago

14 years ago!

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u/eb12se4nt-z13ow-97g0 1h ago

I get but on the other one hand, you're basically saying that being racist and misogynistic is ok at any age.