The Knicks filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging that former employee Ikechukwu Azotam “illegally took thousands of proprietary files with him to his new position” with the Raptors, which he then shared with his new club, reports Ian Begley of SNY.tv (Twitter thread).
Azotam, who was hired away by Toronto this offseason, allegedly shared the proprietary information with “several members” of the team, including head coach Darko Rajakovic and player development coach Noah Lewis, Begley adds.
The lawsuit alleges Azotam signed a confidentiality agreement with the Knicks which required him “to maintain the secrecy of all confidential or proprietary Knicks information.” A source tells Begley the Knicks contacted both the Raptors and the NBA prior to filing the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York.
According to Begley, the lawsuit also alleges that the Raptors “directed Azotam to misuse his access to the Knicks’ subscription to Synergy Sports to create and then transfer to the Raptors Defendants over 3,000 files consisting of film information and data.”
A Madision Square Garden Sports spokesperson released a statement to Begley regarding the lawsuit (Twitter thread).
“The New York Knicks have sued the Toronto Raptors and several members of their organization, including a former Knicks employee, after the former employee illegally took thousands of proprietary files with him to his new position with the Toronto Raptors. These files include confidential information such as play frequency reports, a prep book for the 2022-23 season, video scouting files and materials and more.
“Given the clear violation of our employment agreement, criminal and civil law, we were left no choice but to take this action.”
[UPDATE: Raptors Respond To Lawsuit]
In addition to Azotam, Rajakovic, and Lewis, 10 other Raptors employees are also accused of wrongdoing, tweets Steve Popper of Newsday. Those employees are currently unknown — they’re listed as John Does “1” through “10.”
How do NY fans feel about analytics now! Lol
Hmm. Do the Raptors want any type of data mines by the worst run organization?
Good ……. I hope they go to jail. More important I hope they lose draft picks.
Why didn’t they cancel his subscription to let him access all their data. Haha. Knicks gonna be Knicks.
This isn’t even like the Cards-Astros situation where Correa hacked them. The Knicks let him have access. Still, from these details, sounds illegal. But man. If only they cancelled his synergy subscription.
He forwarded confidential files from his Knicks email to his personal gmail account to send confidential information to another NBA team.
Jail is absolutely on the table. Raptors are in some serious trouble here.
When he was let go. His access stopped. Doesn’t matter if they didn’t reprogram. He is breaking the law. Seems simple to me.
Not against the Law.
This is a legal issue for which he can be sued over depending upon which facts are presented.
This is not the Law I assure you, and if the Knicks employee stands on their rights, litigation against them will be difficult.
Need to know what facts are being used to present the case.
Dolan has a long history of putting his cart before his horse, so I am taking this at face value, waiting to see if there is an substance.
As of now there is nothing but weak accusations.
He signed an agreement with Knicks. It is the law.
Wrong, it is a legality. Not the Law.
The contract is how you know it is 100% a legal issue. This is an accusation, or complaint filed by the Knicks. Anybody, you can do this, but it wouldn’t be in the media.
I have no idea what occurred with the Knicks, Raptors, and former employee, but this is definitely a legal issue, and not a lawful one.
None of this is governed by the law, it’s all private agreement to be decided by an arbitrator (judge) supposedly based on evidence presented by both sides.
Because its the Knicks also, and not Leon Rose, or Dolan Vs Former Employee it has to be a commercial legal matter, or it wouldn’t exist.
Again, not lawful. Its a policy of the contract that is alleged to have been broken. Just a policy.
Nobody will go to jail if the accusation is proven true unless vast sums of cash are discovered, or something of that nature.
Chris Correa got 46 months in prison for hacking the Astros system
link to bleacherreport.com
Yeah….I’m aware. It’s why I mentioned him. No hacking occurred here, man. They never closed his account. And if it happened while he was an employee, also no a hack. The federal government was involved in that. This is just a lawsuit. So me saying “illegal” previously is even prob too broad. Just a contractual issue due to the confidentiality agreement.
If this turns out to be true, I’d imagine Azotam will be banned from working in the league ever again. There would have to be some sort of punishment levied against Toronto by the league, but that would likely take a while – the NBA will have to do some sort of investigation after the lawsuit is decided. I wonder what sort of damages a court of law would award to the Knicks?
Besides everything else, Toronto should be forced to forfeit any games they play against the Knicks for a season or two.
They’re not going to force the Raptors to forfeit games, the players aren’t at fault. The Raptors will lose draft picks and they’ll be firing and hiring a new coaching staff.
How bad does your organization have to be that you want someone to steal information from the Knicks of all teams
More like rubbernecking an accident. Sometimes you just have to see it.
Sounds hard to prove… I bet there is more to this onion.
Intellectual property, and who it belongs to is the hottest commercial legal issue besides NDA’s these days.
Lot’s to be “discovered” before this is a slam-dunk.
“Hey Masai, it’s Leon. Yeah, sorry about the lawsuit, it’s just one of those crazy things, right? Hey, can we get back to talking about OG?”
“Hello?….Hello?… “
Hard to imagine the Raptors would be stupid enough to do something so blatant for so little gain unless they weren’t aware of the confidentiality agreement, which I imagine is standard practice around the league. My gut says nothing will come of this expect LolKnicks getting some more run.
Toronto fans won’t have to worry about O.G. being traded to the Knicks anymore.
The league should bring down the hammer on Toronto for this. Let’s see just how far up the food chain this goes.
Let’s also see what is on tap for Philly with the Harden/Morey salary cap circumvention agreement.
@SheaGoodbye …. Toronto was very aware of a confidentiality agreement being in place. Don’t you think Toronto employees as well as for every other NBA team, have clauses that have the same wording. Standard stuff.
Let’s see…
Given how Adam Silver has handled Ja and a few other cases recently…
Masai will get a 2 week ban from sitting court side…
Seems appropriate…
Dolan says !!!!
We’ll take OG as penalty …….
The guy is guilty. Seems simple enough.
All that will come out of this is Drake will be sentenced to 5 games at MSG.
Lmao
that is cruel and unusual punishment for Drake.
Sounds to me like Dolan being a petty little bit$h because Ujiri has left spent tube of lube on the Knicks nightstand every time the two parties have made a trade. Hilarious!!
They just had to pick the KNICKS ……. why not infiltrate the HEAT, SPURS, WARRIORS, etc instead. Lol.
Good luck proving there is anything that will help the Raptors win, draft, or be successful in all of it. It might have comedic or what not to do value.
GUILTY …….. GUILTY ……… off with his Head
link to apnews.com