Knicks suing Raptors over stolen scouting reports

On Monday, the Knicks filed a lawsuit that names the Raptors, their parent company Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment (MLSE), new head coach Darko Rajaković and former Knicks director of video, analytics, and player development Ikechukwu Azotam as defendants. The lawsuit claims that Rajaković 'recruited and used" Azotam while he was still a Knicks employee to steal information from the team.

It's a serious allegation, particularly the claim that Rajaković directed the espionage, along with player development coach Noah Lewis. The Knicks allege that after the Raptors hired their new coach on June 13, he made a job offer to Azokam, who began sending zip files full of information to Rajaković and Lewis. That included video files from the Knicks' Synergy Sports account, scouting reports for opposing teams and descriptions of the Knicks' organizational structure for scouting.

It's also a sign of how far the Knicks have come that another NBA team is actually trying to emulate them. After decades of mismanagement, short-sighted trades and playoff failures, the Knicks are doing well enough that Toronto is allegedly trying to copy them.

There's no recent precedent for this kind of cheating in the NBA, but a decade ago, former St. Louis Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa repeatedly hacked into the scouting database of the Houston Astros, including one analyst's email account. Not only did the Cardinals have to send the Astros $2 million and their first two draft picks in 2017, Correa was sentenced to 46 months in prison and banned from baseball for life.

MLSE has denied that they or the Raptors had any involvement in the information theft, but if anyone did violate the Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, as the Knicks allege, they could be subject to federal prosecution, as well as any NBA penalties.

It's also not a surprise that the famously litigious Knicks, along with owner James Dolan, have filed a suit. Dolan is in the process of settling lawsuits over building the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, enmeshed in lawsuits over his use of facial-recognition technology and has banned "thousands of lawyers" from Madison Square Garden by blacklisting entire firms.

Perhaps this is the Knicks' belated revenge for the disastrous Andrea Bargnani. Regardless, the Raptors may be in big trouble.