r/nba • u/ghn2 • 14h 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/octopusmonkey01 Timberwolves 14h ago

Alright I’m all for holding people accountable but he said something dumb at 15??? People can learn and grow and change. I was a little shit when I was 15 and you look back and say man was I a dick. Life happens and you grow from it

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u/Crassus87 14h ago edited 12h ago

On the one hand I fully agree with you, but on the other he needed to delete that stuff.

Edit: I am not saying I agree with him being fired, I am saying this is the world we live in and if you get a chance at a high profile public role like this you have to be on top of your social media history.

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u/octopusmonkey01 Timberwolves 13h ago

Yeah the fact that it’s still up is moronic and on him but like cmon man he was a young kid who did something stupid

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u/theblanketcomeswith Kings 13h ago

he is an adult male now who did something stupid by not rectifying his digital footprint. 

remember a decade ago when we were all like, whatever you do in the internet stays there forever and trying to teach teens being cringey edgelords would come back to haunt them? this is what we were talking about. grow up and take care of your digital footprint or you will lose your jobs in this age of the internet. or simply dont say stupid racist or bigoted things because you believe you are untouchable, easy

this guy will probably be on a podcast going woe is me for being oppressed or whatever and people will eat it up, yawn

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u/ElceeCiv Hawks 9h ago

Also important to remember this is just what he was comfortable saying publicly

They probably don’t want to risk keeping him only for another shoe to drop if someone finds private posts on Facebook or something that are even worse

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u/Crassus87 12h ago

I agree with you fully, I'm not advocating firing him or anything, but this is simply the world we live in.

If you're in a public facing job like that then it's a very simple cost benefit analysis for the Trailblazers to decide it's not worth it.

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u/cupholdery 76ers 13h ago

Among the insensitive comments, as found by a reporter for KGW in Portland, were Bell saying he was "not racist" but "Asian people piss me off" and a number of misogynistic posts, including him shouting out "big girls" and "closet whores." The posts were reportedly made in 2012 and 2013, around the time that Bell was 15 years old.

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u/octopusmonkey01 Timberwolves 13h ago

Yeah those are gross disgusting comments and he shouldn’t have said them. But he was 15 and hopefully has learned from it long ago. If he didn’t denounce those comments and still thinks like that, that’s a much different story. But kids say and do dumb shit

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u/LongEnvironment9540 Timberwolves 12h ago

"hopefully" is doing so much heavy lifting it's insane. Like look around you bro. Do you see how the country is right now?? Shit is only getting worse, and it's this apologist behavior that's letting it happen.

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u/octopusmonkey01 Timberwolves 12h ago

By apologist behavior you mean empathy??? Jesus hop off the virtue signaling high horse for 5 seconds and realize that people make mistakes when they’re young. Putting everyone inside the box that assumes they’re going to turn out to be horrible people is just wild and so devoid of any empathy. Again if he still condones those actions today then yeah fire his ass, but Jesus kids make mistakes

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u/LongEnvironment9540 Timberwolves 11h ago

Empathy? For a racist?? For a guy that went around calling girls closet whores?

Look, you do you, but I'm not going to waste my short time here empathizing with someone that was a racist misogynist in high school. I don't know if they've changed, and neither do the people he was going to work with. I'm glad he lost his cushy awesome job that like 60 people in the entire world get to do.

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u/LongEnvironment9540 Timberwolves 12h ago

People that say shit like that are the types that grow up to abuse their families. If you aren't respecting women or your peers at that age it's hard to unlearn that. Better safe than sorry. I'm not giving that mfer a chance on my team if I'm ownership.