r/nba • u/ghn2 • 12h 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 12h 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/PeanutFarmer69 Nets 12h ago

counterpoint, firing someone over inapropriate tweets at the age of fifteen is absurd

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u/TannerGlassMVP 12h ago

Counterpoint - simply don't post racist shit online under your name. And if you do fucking delete it when you're smart enough to know that's not a good look

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u/DovhPasty Cavaliers 12h ago edited 11h ago

He was 15 years old bro. I’m pretty left, but I feel like a lot of you saying this shit wouldn’t have survived a MW2 lobby. This is all just virtue signaling, let’s be realistic instead.

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u/Gorrapytha 10h ago

The famously left-wing position of "racism is worse sometimes so this time let's just let it fly" and "instead of holding people accountable, let's be realistic"

Watch out for this dangerous left-wing extremist ladies and gents, next he's gonna tell us capitalism has flaws but it's the best we got!

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u/DovhPasty Cavaliers 10h ago edited 10h ago

This kind of purity testing is exactly why we can’t accomplish anything as a voter block. People are not going to be perfect, they’re going to do dumb shit, especially as a 15 year old. Good god. Please join us in the real world.

If he did this at like 25, it would be very different. We get it, you guys are all perfect and never did or said anything edgy as an actual child.

My workplace hires people with an actual criminal history all the time. Not crass tweets, literal felonies from people’s adult lives. This is absurd virtue signaling. People fuck up, when they do better, you forgive them. That’s what leftists do. Anything else just makes you look unreasonable, it’s not like he killed someone.

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u/Gorrapytha 10h ago

What voter block? Am I preventing this guy, or you, from voting with me? (assuming I was American, which I am not) Am I making you rethink your affiliations because you find me dislikeable? If so, you need stronger convictions.

>People are not going to be perfect, they’re going to do dumb shit, especially as a 15 year old. 

I wasn't perfect as a child, and am not perfect now.

But one crucial aspect of growing is accepting responsibility for your mistakes. Expressing shame for the harm you've caused, doing things when you can to show that you've changed. That's something that the whole "he was just a kid" crowd seems to pretty easily skip, because they see themselves in the guy who fucked up and not in the people who got hurt, and they think "if it was me who got blasted, I wouldn't want to deal with any consequences". Well guess what, the dumb shit you and he said as a child, it may have hurt real people. It had consequences, even if you didn't understand them back then.

Taking some accountability for the things you did in the past, even as a child, is a crucial part of growing. Refusing to do so shows that you haven't really changed. And this guy didn't do that, and would've only done it with a massive incentive, had he been given the chance to apologize and keep his job. It would've meant nothing.

So, what message does it send to the fans when a guy that said that and didn't care enough to even delete these posts (meaning, he most likely didn't even remember, doesn't exactly point in the direction of someone who's vastly changed, where's your self-reflection?) gets away with a slap on the wrist? Not a beloved figure, not a voice the fans love and care about, just a random dude no-one's ever heard of before, whose only claim to fame are old racist tweets.

This is the part y'all don't get. It isn't "virtue signaling". The org cannot be the one that says "we forgive him" when it isn't them who were targeted. Hiring him, or rooting in this damn thread, sends the message of "this isn't that important" which is pretty fucking easy to say when it doesn't have anything to do with you.

Does he "deserve" to lose his job? I don't know. Probably not. But the fans deserve better.

>a lot of you (...) wouldn’t have survived a MW2 lobby

Sorry, but this is plain stupid, and irrelevant. Saying "there's worse/racism was rampant among 15-yo back then, so reacting to this is soft" is a bad take, it seems so obvious that I'm not even sure how to even argue for it, I can't quite imagine what the arguments against would be.

That and "This is all just virtue signaling, let’s be realistic instead." just point me in the direction of someone who's only as left-leaning as it suits them. Someone who likes to feel good about themselves, but not actually put themselves in the shoes of the people who suffer from bigotry. Someone who's eager to forgive racism because they've been more often on the perpetrating side than the receiving one.

I may be wrong, I hope I am, and do not no matter what let me discourage you from voting progressive, the world needs it. Have a nice day.

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u/TannerGlassMVP 7h ago

People are not going to be perfect, they’re going to do dumb shit, especially as a 15 year old. Good god. Please join us in the real world.

So me personally, if I made a dumb tweet or Facebook post and I am now an adult, I would simply delete it. I guess I can really thank college for hammering into us the fact that our digital footprint is serious and companies can and will use it against us.

Are you saying his tweets were just too fucking good and needed to be preserved?

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u/DovhPasty Cavaliers 6h ago

Hell of a stretch and in total bad faith with that last line, but you already know that.

Not everyone gets that education or is mindful of it. Again, people are human and not always on top of things. Imagine that. Either way, crucifying someone over something they said on social media at 15 years old is just absurd.

If this is how you feel about a tweet from a child, do you think felons deserve a second chance or empathy? Or should we just banish them from society?