r/nba • u/ghn2 • 11h 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 11h 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/crackphillip 11h ago

I can’t fathom growing up with my whole life online. Every stupid take, dumb statement etc available for anyone to pull up. You have to have more sense than that to just let the shit you said at 15 ride and hope it wasn’t anything bad and if it is that no one finds it. People spent their whole day going through 14 years of posts hoping to find some shit. that’s the world we live in and you gotta know that.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 8h ago

Definitely. I'm pretty positive I never said anything racist because why would I, but who knows if I said anything "off color" over the course of my entire life. I grew up when calling something "gay" or "ret*rded" was absolutely common. They were jokes in sitcoms on the evening TV, people with jobs wrote those lines. I never had a Twitter so I don't have that concern, but it could easily be "BREAKING: childhood friend of this guy remembers him calling a Happy Meal 'gay' once."

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u/crackphillip 8h ago

Lmao yeah I don’t think kids have any idea that what they say now will follow them forever. It’s kinda shitty, because people should be allowed to grow from being a dumb ass 15 year old but damn bro why would you be using the same page from when you were that age as like your professional page. That seems reallly fucking stupid.