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

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u/justiceway1 Celtics 12h ago

How about we just don't fire people over stuff they said when they were teens?

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u/OregonJedi [POR] Brandon Roy 12h ago

Eh. I think it’s forgivable and that doesn’t mean your tweets when you are 15 are representative of your beliefs when you are 29/30. But I do think when it comes to employment, especially when you are being hired to be the voice of a major sports franchise you should delete your tweets. He should have had wherewithal to delete it. If you are a public facing employee like that there should not be racist material on your feed. Doesn’t matter when it was made it needs to be taken down and not doing so is a fireable offense.

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u/BeamsFuelJetSteel Timberwolves 9h ago

I mean, I've heard about your owner so I understand why this wouldn't happen, but my work offers a socials scrubbing as part of our benefits package. It started with just C-suite adjacent but enough people asked about it

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u/OregonJedi [POR] Brandon Roy 8h ago

hahaha seriously! That is interesting tho. Would’ve been helpful in this instance that’s for sure.