Trail Blazers fire new announcer hours after hiring for tweets made as teenager

The Portland Trail Blazers fired their newly hired television play-by-play broadcaster Braiden Bell just hours after announcing him. The move followed the resurfacing of racist and misogynistic posts Bell made as a teenager on his active X account. KGW reporter Devon Haskins identified the content while preparing a report, including offensive comments targeting Asian people and derogatory remarks about women. The review found no offensive tweets from Bell after he became an adult. The team said it has “zero tolerance for racist, sexist, or harmful comments” and acknowledged it “did not meet our own bar” in the hiring process.