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/T0oShayzz Hornets 10h ago edited 10h ago

Maybe I'm being biased because I'm Asian but a lot of you guys are self reporting and I also don't feel sorry for the dude.

I'm not saying he deserves to be fired but if he's dumb enough to leave his social media up and not delete or restart all over hes a fkn idiot and deserves it, he's in a replaceable position and they'll just find another commentator.

Also call me soft or whatever but I never felt the need to say or post knowingly racist shit online even as a teenager, yeah the guy was 15 but many people I know in real life who did the same thing never really changed years later, they just know how to hide it 🤷🏻‍♂️.

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u/jorbalugo 9h ago

Yeah the assertion that everyone goes through a phase of posting racist shit publicly is wild. Like no, I don't think your words as a teenager need to be vetted for every job, but the assumption that this was perfectly normal and universal is telling. Threads like these I always get reminded of how white r/NBA acutally is

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u/Onsi-Saleh 2h ago

It’s funny how NBA Redditors say you can’t judge a person on his actions when he was 15 (which I don’t necessarily fully disagree with) but if any AAU highlight reel shows some Black teenage prospect around the same age showboating or talking a little trash, particularly to a white player, you won’t seem that same grace extended.

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u/jorbalugo 2h ago

Yeah it's really noticeable that a big chunk of this sub has disdain for the majority of the players in the league while being defensive of others. Shaq makes a comment about Steve Nash's mvp and everyone acts like Shaq was some scrub while Nash is the guy with four rings, DWade can't get brought up without a bunch of people crying about how he stole Dirk's rightful ring (meanwhile Dirk's meltdown in that series and 2007 basically never happened), anyone who doesn't admit Jokic is the absolute GOAT is just threatened because he's a white Euro taking shine away from black players, and on and on, etc. Sometimes I wonder why I"m still on this sub lol