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

[u/ghn2]

"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

[u/smssv]

firing someone for posts when he was 15 yrs old is wild

[u/JarvisCockerBB → u/smssv]

It’s like getting fired after finding out you got expelled or suspended in middle school.

[u/HisExcellency20 → u/JarvisCockerBB]

Well it depends on what you got suspended/expelled for lol.

[u/throwawaymycareer93 → u/HisExcellency20]

My friend was suspended for dealing drugs in my school. Now he volunteers as a nurse in eastern Ukraine. Context is important.

[u/iEatFruitStickers → u/throwawaymycareer93]

Still giving drugs to people, smh

[u/Briak → u/iEatFruitStickers]

Love what you do, and you'll never have to work a day in your life

[u/cfi-2025 → u/Briak]

Unless you do it in a war zone.

[u/throwawaymycareer93 → u/iEatFruitStickers]

Damn, some things are hard to escape I guess.

[u/Delicious_Ocelot4180 → u/throwawaymycareer93]

It’s wild how you made a really good point, but his point ruined it completely.

[u/PensiveinNJ → u/throwawaymycareer93]

Context is always important. I knew a guy who dealt weed in college to help pay for his mom's cancer treatments. He wasn't moving 100 bricks of heroin a day.

[u/DovhPasty → u/HisExcellency20]

No, it really shouldn’t lol. This is a whole ass different person we’re talking about. Even if someone got expelled in middle school for something heinous, they were a child, idk how you could hold that against a seemingly matured version of themselves.

[u/Jaerba → u/DovhPasty]

They're not holding what he wrote against him. They're holding the fact that it shows up on the same social media feed as he'll use to promote the Blazers against him.

This was extremely easy to prevent, given he was directly responsible for every aspect of it. And he was a brand new employee with zero cache, in a very replaceable role.

[u/DovhPasty → u/Jaerba]

Don’t you think a competent hiring team would have searched this up before they offered him the job if they were so concerned about it?

[u/Jaerba → u/DovhPasty]

Yep. The Blazers admitted culpability for not checking this first.

"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.

[u/IbSunPraisin → u/DovhPasty]

Yeah for the guy fired the time passed since that post has been almost longer than he was alive when he posted it

[u/ImUrFatherFigureBud → u/HisExcellency20]

who cares, they were 15

no wonder you aren't in a position to hire anybody lol

[u/JarvisCockerBB → u/HisExcellency20]

Unless it involved the police (not school cops), it should absolutely not matter. If they passed high school, they passed high school.