Earlier this week, Ric Bucher came out with a very interesting report about Ben Simmons. Essentially, Bucher claimed that Ben Simmons left the Brooklyn Nets group chat after being asked to play in Game 4 of the NBA playoffs against the Boston Celtics.
Bucher says that this rubbed Kevin Durant the wrong way and that it was one of the many reasons why the superstar ultimately decided to demand a trade. Simmons eventually refuted the report, although the damage was already done.
Recently, Shams Charania of The Athletic came out and said that Bucher's report was unequivocally false. Well, Bucher did not like that very much, as he went on a long rant about his reporting, and how everything he said was 100 percent factual. Seems like we have reporter beef on our hands.
“I’ve been assured that this is correct in spite of another report that says it never happened,” Bucher said according to via HoopsHype. “And that’s as far as I’ll go with that, too. I’m not going to punch down. Ben Simmons was in a group chat with some of the other teams players. And on it, they asked Ben if he was playing in game four. And not only did he not answer, he dropped out of the chat. Now, as I said, there’s another reporter out there who suggested the event never happened. I’m well aware that that reporter has, let’s say he has vested interests in painting things a certain way. And again, I will leave it at that his comments prompted me to go back and double check with my source. And that source insists that it did indeed happen, and explain why someone might report it another way. So I’m sticking with it.”
Reporters are very protective of their stories, so it should come as no surprise that Bucher had this response. Either way, it could be a while before we know what truly went down in that group chat.