The Portland Trail Blazers pushed a broadcasting icon out the door to cut costs. Now they get what they paid for | Bill Oram

What would Kevin Calabro be worth to Tom Dundon now?

As the internet collapses over the morality and ethics of condemning someone based on their words as a teenager, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the Portland Trail Blazers did this entirely for themselves.

They didn’t need to hire a new play-by-play guy at all. The organization had a legendary broadcaster in that revered seat and they did what we now know was SOP at One Center Court.

Tom Dundon’s Blazers turned the lights out on him.

Turns out, going cheap has consequences.

The Trail Blazers hired Braiden Bell, 29, around noon Thursday and fired him before the dinner plates hit the sink.

His broadcasting career is permanently tarnished, if not completely ended, thanks to unearthed social media posts that revealed what idiotic thoughts can run through the pathways of an underdeveloped brain.

There is a lot of blame to be had here. Once the racist and misogynistic tweets were uncovered by KGW and reporter Devon Haskins, I don’t think the Trail Blazers had much of a choice.

A team that includes one player from China and another from South Korea, is partly owned by the Chinese co-founder of Panda Express, and plays in a league with vital business relationships across the Pacific cannot have a prominent representative who officially disparages Asians.

But there is also a reason why the criminal justice system shows mercy to juveniles; a reason why children who make mistakes under the law usually get a second chance at age 18.

It’s a real waste. Five days before the Trail Blazers’ preseason opener, the team has no one to call games alongside analyst Lamar Hurd.

An empty chair is a way to avoid having one of the five most expensive broadcasts in the NBA.

This measure, we learned on Monday, is a real concern for the management of the Trail Blazers. That was the justification offered by team president Dewayne Hankins for destroying the show by showing Calabro and others the door.

“When you see an item like that (it’s) a cost-saving opportunity,” Hankins said at the Trail Blazers’ media day. “It’s a difference between the ownership groups. The old ownership group (was) happy to spend on things like broadcasting and spared no expense.”

Notably, former Vice President Bert Kolde particularly liked TV shows and pushed for innovation.

Hankins continued: “And then this group wants to make sure that we’re running, you know, obviously a great organization and one that can be sustainable.”

El Cheapo strikes again.

Calabro was a Hall of Fame level broadcaster who talked like jazz. Its authoritative play-by-play is among the best in the business. The fact that he was immediately recruited by the Minnesota Timberwolves should tell you how much he is admired, revered and, yes, valued.

A sublime voice, not subprime.

At some point, you have to think Dundon will learn that he gets what he pays for. Even if local elected officials will tell you that it pays nothing.

Dundon is obviously not responsible for Bell’s past statements. The young man must have them. But when you prioritize savings over experience, you assume the risk of the inevitable drop in quality.

When you empty your organization of talented, experienced employees, you choose to eliminate the guardrails that help prevent situations like this.

Someone within the Blazers organization absolutely should have spotted these old social media posts during the hiring process. But who? The franchise was gutted by Dundon’s cost-cutting.

The capable executive who oversaw the Blazers’ broadcast, former marketing director Kevin Kinghorn, was among the team’s more than 70 layoffs earlier this year. Their top human resources manager left. So do half a dozen members of their public relations team.

Everyone who remains is responsible for much more than before.

“My experience is that fewer levels give people more responsibility and they do a better job,” Dundon told me in May.

Is anyone buying this now?

Careful oversight of Bell’s online presence would have protected the franchise from embarrassment and, frankly, protected Bell from his own youthful mistakes. These tweets should have eliminated him from consideration before anyone in Portland even knew his name. He would have missed out on a dream job, of course, but he would have learned the lesson quietly and could have moved on.

Instead, they now constitute a permanent black mark on his CV and will be associated with him for the rest of his professional life.

Is this a fair outcome for the disturbing comments he posted on social media when he was a teenager? I’m going to struggle with this one for a while.

I heard enough highlights from Bell before the Blazers 180 to know he had a smooth broadcast voice and knew how to call a game. It’s possible that he became an absolute star in Portland.

But it can’t be emphasized enough that the Trail Blazers didn’t need to go out and identify a future star.

They already had one.

Calabro is a master of the craft. And Dundon chose to abandon that and hire someone with little experience, because he views employees only as expendable property. He believes that there is always someone else who will do a job just as well for less.

He is usually right. Micah Nori has signed an unprecedented one-year contract to become an NBA coach. You can only imagine how little Bell was going to be paid compared to Calabro or even just the industry standard.

But with a constant focus on organizing in search of savings, we will continue to catch up with Dundon, on a small or large scale.

The kid’s tweets were very unfortunate.

However, the blame for the resulting fiasco falls squarely and solely on the Trail Blazers.