The Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks continue to battle one another off the court, as an ongoing lawsuit from the Knicks is beginning to cause some drama. New York originally filed a lawsuit against Toronto before the start of the 2023-24 season, claiming that former Knicks employee, Ikechukwu Azotam, took proprietary information from his time with the Knicks and shared it with several members of the Raptors staff, including head coach Darko Rajakovic.

As new information continues to come to light, the Knicks are continuing to drag this case out in order to possibly work a decision in their favor. According to SNY, Raptors lawyers are now seeking arbitration in this case in order to dismiss the lawsuit due to “two severely flawed arguments.”

“The bottom line is that the Knicks are keen to stay in court as long as possible because this lawsuit attracts publicity and is directed at harming the Raptors, its head coach and members of his staff,” Toronto lawyers stated in the latest court filing on Monday, via SNY's Ian Begley.

It's worth noting that the Knicks are seeking more than $10 million in damages from the Raptors due to the intellectual property theft and Knicks owner James Dolan does not want NBA commissioner Adam Silver being an arbiter of the case due to Silver's relationship with Raptors governor Larry Tanenbaum.

In November, Dolan claimed that the NBA does not want to hear his opinions and do not want his opinions as a result of the league not showing any support in his lawsuit over the summer. As a result, the Knicks owner stepped down from his position with the NBA's Board of Governors and informed the league that he would not longer be attending any meetings.

Raptors lawyers continue to claim that the evidence brought to light shows Azotam did not share any secrets with any member of Toronto's staff. As a result, Raptors representatives are looking for this case to end shiftly, as they are now telling those named in the lawsuit that they can pursue legal action against the Knicks for defamatory public statements, including accusing them of committing “clear violation of criminal and civil law,” according to ESPN. This includes Raptors staff members and Rajakovic.

The judge will ultimately make the final decision on whether or not this case will move to arbitration with Silver involved. At this time, there is no further information as to how the Raptors will respond to the Knicks' latest move.