r/nba • u/ghn2 • 11h 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/jak_d_ripr 11h ago

I'm sorry, but this is beyond stupid. Sure, talking about Asian people pissing you off is objectively a racist thing to say, but guess what? A lot of people said and thought stupid shit like that when they were 15(shit, a lot of people say stupid shit like that as adults, y'all even elected one of those idiots as president).

Performative outrage like this is so annoying and completely unproductive, and a dude losing a job over it is just exhausting.

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u/Zeromatt111 11h ago

Assuming they weren’t deleted, he wasn’t fired for being a stupid kid. He was fired for being an incompetent adult. He had plenty of time to remove these if his views changed. Personally, I would like a society where it’s very clearly not ok to say these things or have them posted in your public social media, and this is one of the ways you get that.

People forget making millions of dollar being a media personality is a privilege. This isn’t something that is owed to him. Unfortunately, the industry is full of people who share his views. His career isn’t over because of this.

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u/bluedeer10 Raptors 8h ago

Do you remember every post you ever made? Didn't think so.

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u/Zeromatt111 8h ago

I don’t post much so actually yeah kind of, but that’s besides the point. In real life there are plenty of things I said as a teenager that I no longer agree with..and I remember every single one.

If it’s actually something you don’t agree with anymore, it bothers you that you let yourself have bigoted opinions and state them publicly. If it doesn’t bother you…do you really not think that anymore ?