Shams Charania-Ric Bucher Beefing Over Ben Simmons Group Chat Report

The sports reporters Wars wage on!

Ric Bucher came out with a very troubling report about Ben Simmons earlier in the week. Basically the NBA insider claimed that Brooklyn Nets player 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 claims 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, calling it a slow news day.

Ben Simmons Seemingly Responds To Rumor About Leaving Nets Group Chathttps://t.co/Idh7ihXFFo

— SideAction (@SideActionHQ) August 9, 2022

You can watch Bucher’s report on Simmons leaving the group chat below:

After the Nets game 3 loss vs the Celtics, Nets players asked Ben Simmons if he was ready to play in Game 4… Ben Simmons left the groupchat without answering.

👀

(Via @RicBucher @TheHerd )pic.twitter.com/ugUDUYra4Q

— NBA Retweet (@RTNBA) August 8, 2022

Shams Charania of The Athletic came out and blatantly said that Bucher’s report was BS.

"This NEVER happened.. it's an amazing story but it didn't happen"@ShamsCharania on the rumors that Ben Simmons left the Nets group chat after they asked him to play in game 4 against the Celtics #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/wzWShQzG9m

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 9, 2022

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, and that he was sticking by his initial report.

“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.”

Seems like we have reporter beef on our hands.

Nothing is more entertaining than when sports reporters are calling Fake News on each other.

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