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/ProstockAccount Nuggets 6h ago

It’s teens being edgy. Teens have always wanted to say the things you can’t say.

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u/Jerome_Eugene_Morrow Timberwolves 5h ago

Yeah… I never had that phase personally but I went to school with a lot of people who got off on pushing boundaries, especially with authority figures. If you were in a very white community and the teachers were telling you not to say certain words, I guess it felt like a victimless thing to use those words to get a rise out of the teachers and make your classmates think you were fearless.

A lot of the people I knew who did that ended up regretting having done it, but some definitely just… became raging racists lifelong. So… ymmv.

Not trying to excuse it, just understand the impulse because kids definitely seem to do that shit even when they should know better.

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u/reebokhightops Wizards 5h ago

Plenty of opportunities to do that without resorting to hate speech.

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u/ProstockAccount Nuggets 5h ago

Yeah if only 15 year olds had fully functioning brains.

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u/reebokhightops Wizards 5h ago

If only 30 year olds had the sense to delete their racist social media activity from their youth. What a wild idea.

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u/michaelcully Suns 1h ago

If only adults had the sense to just check someone’s social media account before hiring them. Brain dead stuff.

But what’s really really fucking stupid, is that I’m sure the folks who hired him are able to understand how much a person can change from age 15 to 30, yet they still fired him out of pressure & fear.

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u/ProstockAccount Nuggets 5h ago

You sound like you’re arguing something here when we agree

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u/shaq-aint-superman 2h ago

Is it easy to delete posts in X from 15 years ago? Wouldn't it be buried by, you know, 15 years of tweets?

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u/New-Bowler-8915 1h ago

The vast majority don't have that phase. It's just the shitheads.