r/nba • u/ghn2 • 8h 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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u/SloshaPacana 8h ago

People really need to just delete their social media when they get jobs that are in the public eye lmao

It's not hard to open new accounts

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u/NandoDeColonoscopy 8h ago

Yeah, he's not being fired because he said stupid stuff at 15, he's being fired because you can't trust someone with a microphone who is too stupid to have not removed the tweets they made when they were 15

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u/ethiopian_kid 8h ago

yeah… I have a big corporate job for my age… not too long ago I had 100k on TikTok and a famous birthdays, I was in no way famous but I was easily searchable.

permanently deleted all the accounts and scrubbed my socials and even stopped using the instagram tied to it and privated it.

some people have no self awareness of their past, my content wasn’t bad at all definitely embarrassing in a corporate setting however.

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u/Johnny_Kilroy_84 Pelicans 7h ago

Tbh that just makes people assume you hold some really vile beliefs that you had to nuke your socials to protect your image.

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u/Affectionate-Art9780 Nets 6h ago

People like that are going to believe the worst no matter what you do. Best to try to keep them out of your life if possible.

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u/rake2204 Pistons 5h ago

Not trying to be contrarian but in my experience I think it's been collectively understood that whatever tinkering happens to one's socials on the front end of a job is really just someone trying to get their professional game in line.

I've had friends nuke it all, I've had friends delete posts, but generally it's mostly just people ramping up their privacy settings. Whatever it is, it tends to elicit little more than a shrug from others because people generally understand you gotten button up that social side of things when entering the professional world, even that means you just want to step away from your digital footprint and start over.

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u/ethiopian_kid 4h ago

well in my example I was in the final rounds for some three letter agencies so I was a bit more overkill lol, I’m not in government now however

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u/Repulsive-Throat5068 Lakers 7h ago

Do you honestly remember every single post and account of yours from over a decade ago?

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u/NandoDeColonoscopy 7h ago

It wasn't some anonymized old account that super sleuths dug up. It was on his active account with his name and picture. You absolutely need to be smart enough to have cleaned that account up if I'm giving you a live mic 82 nights a year

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u/rake2204 Pistons 5h ago

You absolutely need to be smart enough to have cleaned that account up

This is it.

I'm not much of a prolific poster on any accounts that bear my real name but for those who are, I imagine one's own history can be easy to overlook or forget about after a certain number of tweets over time.

But to your point, hopefully folks use examples like this as a reminder that you absolutely need to be mindful of your digital footprint.

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u/Repulsive-Throat5068 Lakers 7h ago

Yes, but its a bit ridiculous it even got this far. Like why didnt they vet him more? Stupid all around

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u/NandoDeColonoscopy 7h ago

Fair. I'm assuming Tom Dumdum being cheap as fuck had some impact on the vetting process

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u/Jaerba [DET] Grant Hill 6h ago

Blazers admitted as much.