NBA reporters Shams Charania and Ric Bucher appear to be beefing over the Ben Simmons group hat report.
Bucher reported that he had heard Simmons had left the Nets group chat after being asked if he was going to play in a playoff game.
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.
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(Via @RicBucher @TheHerd )https://t.co/ugUDUYra4Q
— NBA Retweet (@RTNBA) August 8, 2022
Charania shut down Bucher’s report and told Pat McAfee that it “never happened.”
"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
During his latest podcast episode, Bucher fired back and stood firm in his reporting that Simmons indeed left the group chat.
“I’ve been assured that this is correct in spite of another report that says it never happened,” “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.”
