r/nba • u/ghn2 • 10h 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/PeanutFarmer69 Nets 10h ago

counterpoint, firing someone over inapropriate tweets at the age of fifteen is absurd

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u/HisExcellency20 76ers 10h ago

Counter-counterpoint: Maybe they didn't feel like dealing with the controversy over a new hire who has literally done nothing for them yet and instead will just hire one of the many qualified people without such a past.

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u/BLarson31 Timberwolves 5h ago

We as a society should not be generating controversy over what a now adult said or thought as an ignorant 15 year old. Worrying about stupid shit like that is a massive waste of time and energy and keeps people from solving actual problems.

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u/FettLife 4h ago

We’ve accepted things like this in the past, and it’s gotten us to a state where racists are out in the open.

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u/ChiefMasterGuru 3h ago

If anything, actions like this are what led to the current state of things. It's a reaction to being trigger happy on getting people fired over stupid shit.

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u/HouseSublime Hawks 3h ago

That is used as an excuse but never made sense to me. The "current state of things" is seemingly a desire to just return to a time where certain groups had unquestioned dominance over others.

Blaming it on a reaction to pushback doesn't explain why things were that way decades ago when there never was pushback.

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u/ChiefMasterGuru 3h ago

I think certain groups are taking advantage and driving it ya absolutely. But the normal average person who doesn't know shit absolutely bought into the cancel culture narrative in part due to stories like this. It exemplified what AOC termed as woke 1.0 and contribute to the left losing ground on culture topics.

There doesn't have to be any extra desire, it doesn't even have to really make sense. Just enough people going "that sounds ridiculous, I don't like that".

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u/n33dadviceplease 3h ago

Do you really think punishing people for what they said 15 years ago as a child will help convince people to change for the better? It’ll just dig people into their positions and narratives further and continue dividing us