Sports
Trail Blazers Hired An Announcer And Fired Him Before He Said A Word
By Michael Yappaport, . BSN Network. Satire.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Portland Trail Blazers made history Thursday by completing a full employment cycle, hiring and firing their new announcer before a single game, a single practice, or, as far as anyone can confirm, a single cup of complimentary arena coffee.
Braiden Bell was introduced as the team's new play-by-play voice sometime Thursday morning. By Thursday afternoon, he was a cautionary tale with a parking validation stamp.
The team cited social media posts Bell made as a teenager as the reason for his dismissal, releasing a statement confirming the organization has, quote, zero tolerance for racist, sexist or harmful comments. They did not explain at what point during the hiring process someone thought to check.
Let me be clear about something. This is not a story about what Braiden Bell posted online when he was a kid. This is a story about a front office that apparently considers a background check a post-announcement activity. Somewhere in Portland, there is an HR department that treats Google as a Phase Two option.
The Trail Blazers have had a turbulent few years. Injuries, rebuilds, roster chaos, the whole buffet. And somehow, in the middle of all of it, the most complete thing they managed to execute this season was a hiring and firing that fit inside a single news cycle. That's not zero tolerance. That's zero planning.
Damian Lillard, who spent years carrying that franchise on his back before they traded him to Milwaukee, could not be reached for comment, but his expression in every photo from his last two seasons in Portland probably covers it.
Bell, for his part, had enough time to call his mother, possibly update his LinkedIn, and experience approximately forty-five minutes of believing his career was going well.
The team has not announced a replacement, which means the microphone is currently sitting in an empty booth in a building full of people who are extremely committed to values they discovered at noon on a Thursday.
Portland will find a new voice. They always do. The real question is whether the next candidate should submit a copy of every tweet they ever liked, including the ones they liked while watching other people's games at 2 a.m. in 2013, or whether the Blazers would like to do a quick skim before the press release this time.
Braiden Bell held that job for roughly the time it takes to drive to the arena from the airport.
He never called a play.
The Blazers called it progress.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/blazers-fire-new-announcer-hours-after-hiring-him-braiden-bell/