Thursday, 18 April 2019:

The Philadelphia 76ers have slammed a report as "a steaming pile of trash" that claimed Ben Simmons missed a game because he was out partying and the team's general manager contemplated trading him.

The New York Daily News story also alleged coach Brett Brown had lost the 76ers' locker room and would be sacked if they did not win their first-round playoff series against the Brooklyn Nets.

"This is one of the most irresponsible hack jobs I've ever seen in more than a decade of working in sports," 76ers' vice president of communications Dave Sholler wrote on Twitter.

"Factual inaccuracies, made-up stories, and references to convos that never happened.

"This is a steaming pile of trash."

The 76ers are locked 1-1 in the best-of-seven series with game three in Brooklyn on Thursday.

The story claimed Simmons sat out of the 76ers' March 25 21-point loss to the Orlando Magic because he had been partying the previous night in Orlando.

The report, citing "a source close to the team", originally claimed Simmons was partying in Miami with girlfriend Kendall Jenner but the newspaper corrected it to change the location to Orlando.

Jenner was in LA at the time.

The story also alleged 76ers general manager Elton Brand made it known to team ownership they needed to consider trading Simmons because he "was simply not coachable, and was a regular-season player annually exposed in the playoffs".

AAP