The Portland Trail Blazers turned a routine broadcast hire into a same-day reversal.
On Oct. 1, the team announced Braiden Bell as its new television play-by-play announcer. Less than eight hours later, Bell was gone after reports surfaced of offensive social-media posts he had made as a teenager.
The Blazers said the posts were “in clear violation of team and league policies, as well as the team’s values and expectations,” and added that they would not move forward with the broadcaster. The speed of the response made the personnel move feel less like a standard hiring cycle than an immediate test of how quickly the organization would act once the posts were brought to light.
One of the posts that drew attention was written on Dec. 9, 2012, when Bell was around 15 years old. In it, he wrote: “I’m not racist at all.. But not gonna lie.. Asian people piss me off! Hahaha #Honest.”
The posts were discovered by reporters at KGW TV, according to the approved reporting. Once they surfaced, the Blazers moved quickly to reverse course on a hire they had just announced.
Bell had been set to replace longtime play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, who had held the role since 2016 before leaving in July after what he told The Oregonian was a “subprime” contract offer. The team had also expressed enthusiasm about Bell’s arrival, with team president Dewayne Hankins saying, “He’s a great fit for where we’re headed and an important voice for the next chapter of Trail Blazers basketball.” The press release also said fans would get to meet Bell at Sunday’s Blazers Fan Fest event.
Bell’s background included play-by-play work for Arizona State University, as well as broadcasting for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and the G League’s Valley Suns. That résumé was enough for the Blazers to introduce him as the next voice of the franchise. It was not enough to keep the job once the old posts were uncovered.
The team said it has “zero tolerance for racist, sexist, or harmful comments,” and repeated that stance as it explained the dismissal. The result was a hiring announcement that lasted only hours, followed by a public apology and a quick retreat from a decision the organization had already put in front of fans.