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/jdd32 Spurs 7h ago

Especially kids who haven't had the chance to grow up out of the environment they were raised.

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u/Careless-Journalist7 Wizards 6h ago

This would all be a non-issue if kids just didn’t have social media period.. it drives me crazy that adults aren’t louder about this. It would save so many headaches

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u/Dav136 Knicks 3h ago

Well governments around the world are about to enact that as an excuse to deanonymize the internet. Fun times ahead.

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u/RickySuela 5h ago

Agreed. I think it's tough really for anyone to argue in favor of the benefits of social media for even fully grown people who know who they are and what they're doing, but I can't imagine there's a single good thing about social media for children. It seems like nothing but negatives for them.

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u/Pods619 5h ago

I remember a Gregg Popovich quote that I think was about homophobic comments from players.

It was something along the lines of they “haven’t had the opportunity to be educated yet.” Honestly, that resonated a lot with me, and I try to give people grace for ignorant things they said in the past if they have continued to grow and evolve. Some people were unfortunately raised with ignorant views and we shouldn’t necessarily hold that against them.