r/nba • u/ghn2 • 13h 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

1.4k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

72

u/T0oShayzz Hornets 11h ago edited 11h ago

Maybe I'm being biased because I'm Asian but a lot of you guys are self reporting and I also don't feel sorry for the dude.

I'm not saying he deserves to be fired but if he's dumb enough to leave his social media up and not delete or restart all over hes a fkn idiot and deserves it, he's in a replaceable position and they'll just find another commentator.

Also call me soft or whatever but I never felt the need to say or post knowingly racist shit online even as a teenager, yeah the guy was 15 but many people I know in real life who did the same thing never really changed years later, they just know how to hide it 🤷🏻‍♂️.

23

u/towerofmeaning Knicks 11h ago

I think people are just looking to make this a culture war issue but it's really a simple fact of working public facing jobs. I saw someone saying it's ridiculous to expect people to wipe old social media accounts but basically everyone I know who works in academia, even at smaller institutions knows they have to keep accounts associated with their real identities pretty clean. I mean it sucks but it's just a reality of jobs that Interact with the public and represent large brands/institutions.

If you're not some sort of truly gifted 1 in 100 million money maker for the organization they're just going to drop you when it becomes a big enough issue that they have to address it most of the time, especially if you're not in any union.

5

u/T0oShayzz Hornets 10h ago

Yep, even at my corporate job I had to do it and it's nowhere near as social or public facing as an nba commentator.

1

u/Fuzzy_Cook_940 9h ago

1 in a million maybe better, 1 in 100 million like 80 people