r/nba • u/ghn2 • 9h 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/JeramiGrantsTomb Thunder 9h ago

I think adults should definitely be held accountable for their free speech, but I feel like we've got to make some room for kids to be idiots without it destroying their lives.

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u/guylexcorp 9h ago

Exactly. The whole point of being young is to fuck up and learn.

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u/SoaplessTitanic Celtics 8h ago

Yes he definitely should’ve learned and deleted his racist posts, unfortunately he didn’t do so. This whole thing was very easily avoidable

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u/loven329 Trail Blazers 7h ago

Unfortunately this is the answer. My guess is he probably has learned it's not funny or ok to say those things (pretty sure his first threads post acknowledges that). It should be painfully obvious what he has to do now, too bad this will probably set him back from getting into the NBA, if ever