Ric Bucher made waves earlier this week when he dropped a report claiming Ben Simmons left a Brooklyn Nets group chat after he was asked by teammates if he would be playing in Game 4 against the Boston Celtics. Simmons denied this ever happened, as did Shams Charania.
Despite these refutations, Bucher is doubling down ā¦ hard. On an episode of his On The Ball podcast, Bucher insisted this Simmons thing happened and took a shot at Shams in the process.
āIāve been assured that this is correct in spite of another report that says it never happened,ā Bucher said of his Ben Simmons report, via HoopsHype. āAnd thatās as far as Iāll go with that, too. Iām 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, thereās another reporter out there who suggested the event never happened. Iām well aware that that reporter has, letās 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 Iām sticking with it.ā
So there you have it. Bucher is going to stick with this Ben Simmons report no matter what anybody else says about it. It's certainly a juicy story that many critics of Simmons would like to believe, but it's impossible to know right know who's actually right.
The callout of Shams in here is certainly pretty bold. Nothing like a good old fashioned source-off. If we're ever going to get the truth, it would likely have to come from the other Nets players involved in the chat. Maybe Kevin Durant would spill some tea if he's traded.
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