NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers
Fire Announcer Over Resurfaced Racist, Sexist Posts
Published
The Portland Trail Blazers canned their new play-by-play announcer hours after announcing his hiring … after a series of racist and sexist tweets from when he was in high school resurfaced.
The NBA franchise fired Braiden Bell over comments he posted on social media in 2012 and 2013 after a local reporter reached out to the team for comment about the posts … according to KGW8.
Bell has since made his X account private, but not before the outlet took screenshots and reported on his insensitive posts.
Bell — who was reportedly around 15 at the time — wrote in one from 2012 … “I’m not racist at all.. But not gonna lie.. Asian people piss me off! Hahaha #Honest.”
The fired play-by-play announcer said in another X post from the same year … “Gotta give a shoutout to all the big girls out there and those closet w*****.”
Bell wrote in another from 2013 … “We got a slut alert on aisle 10.”
The team told KGW8 … “The Portland Trail Blazers have zero tolerance for racist, sexist, or harmful comments. Social media posts made by our recently announced play-by-play broadcaster are in clear violation of team and league policies, as well as our values and expectations. Therefore, we will not be moving forward with this broadcaster.”
Admitting they “did not meet our own bar” in their hiring process … the team apologized to fans, saying they “will do better.”
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