Amid all the talks about Kevin Durant, Brooklyn Nets point-forward Ben Simmons saw his name thrown into the drama for rather shocking reasons. Now, he is firing back on all the false rumors surrounding his name.

On Tuesday, Ric Bucher of FOX Sports claimed that ahead of Game 4 of the Nets' series against the Boston Celtics, the players asked Simmons on their group chat whether or not he would be available to play in the do-or-die showdown. Instead of replying, though, he snubbed the question and left the chat.

Bucher furthered that Durant was not happy about it, noting that “KD was like ‘This is what I signed up for? This is who I’m playing with?'”

Simmons has since reacted to the report, saying it was a “slow news day” for everyone. He then followed it up with a comment on a post about the story and called it “fake stuff.”

While it's not hard to believe the story given the narrative that has surrounded Ben Simmons for the whole 2021-22 season, it does look unlikely that he would do such a move. Besides, his back injury was already a big problem at that point, so it's hard to see his teammates pressuring him to suit up or whatsoever.

Regardless of what's true or not, though, the Nets have bigger issues to address this offseason. Kevin Durant has doubled down on his trade request, which seems to be a “demand” now. He even asked team owner Joe Tsai to choose between him and the duo of Steve Nash and Sean Marks.

Certainly, a player leaving a group chat for an old issue is not on the team's worries now.