>**People in the league office were surprised when the suit dropped Monday, said league sources, who were granted anonymity so they could speak freely.**
>Normally, the NBA handles issues like this. If someone allegedly breaks a rule, the league investigates and, if necessary, disciplines the involved parties. The Knicks opting to go to court is what separates this from your regular old tampering investigation, in addition to the nature of the allegations.
>**The Athletic has asked the NBA for comment several times since Monday, but the league has yet to provide one. How the league decides to handle one of its teams suing another remains in question, too.**
>The Athletic spoke with a lawyer who has a background in litigation to provide an expert perspective on this case. The lawyer was given anonymity in order to speak freely.
>**“There is no obligation at this point to put in evidence,” the lawyer said. “… I interpreted your question as that they don’t really back up their claims (about Rajaković’s motivations), and I think they would say, ‘We agree. That’s why we filed the lawsuit. We don’t have all the information now. But once we get text messages and emails from the other side, then it’s different.’ So I guess they’ll say all that stuff is to come and if we’re wrong about the motivations, we’ll be wrong about the motivations.”**
>Probably not. It’s challenging to form a defamation case for statements made in court or a filing.
>**“If things are gonna cut one way, they should cut in the way of council zealously representing their clients without penalties on the backend,” the aforementioned lawyer said. “But there are penalties for lying. Even in cases that are extremely meritorious, allegations about motive, intent and state of mind are always alleged vaguely because that’s the way you try to position the case. It’s perfectly correct to say, we don’t exactly know what the motivation was because we haven’t interviewed or examined the person and you just have to bring up other factors.”**
>“The reason why it’s permitted is that from their perspective, they would say, we don’t need to know their names and addresses at this point to assert our claims in court,” the anonymous lawyer said. “The context here is that they are trying to allege that it was not just one rogue employee.”
>**It is unclear how much the Raptors or the NBA would weigh intent versus action, assuming that either party acts before the suit plays out in the courts or in behind-the-scenes discussions. In most cases, the NBA waits until legal proceedings play out before deciding on potential punishment for players and teams. It is a safe bet the league will do the same here, which does not preclude the NBA from putting pressure on the parties to resolve the issue behind the scenes before it goes to court.**
AlexRescueDotCom
You know those ex’s that kept saying to you “Oh who you texting? You cheating on me?” Only to find out later they were really cheating on you? I’m getting some weird vibes here that we are going to end up seeing that Knicks are actually the ones that stole something from Raptors and tried to keep it hush-hush but now it’s out in the open and they are the ones who will get sued and will have to pay.
2 Comments
>**People in the league office were surprised when the suit dropped Monday, said league sources, who were granted anonymity so they could speak freely.**
>Normally, the NBA handles issues like this. If someone allegedly breaks a rule, the league investigates and, if necessary, disciplines the involved parties. The Knicks opting to go to court is what separates this from your regular old tampering investigation, in addition to the nature of the allegations.
>**The Athletic has asked the NBA for comment several times since Monday, but the league has yet to provide one. How the league decides to handle one of its teams suing another remains in question, too.**
>The Athletic spoke with a lawyer who has a background in litigation to provide an expert perspective on this case. The lawyer was given anonymity in order to speak freely.
>**“There is no obligation at this point to put in evidence,” the lawyer said. “… I interpreted your question as that they don’t really back up their claims (about Rajaković’s motivations), and I think they would say, ‘We agree. That’s why we filed the lawsuit. We don’t have all the information now. But once we get text messages and emails from the other side, then it’s different.’ So I guess they’ll say all that stuff is to come and if we’re wrong about the motivations, we’ll be wrong about the motivations.”**
>Probably not. It’s challenging to form a defamation case for statements made in court or a filing.
>**“If things are gonna cut one way, they should cut in the way of council zealously representing their clients without penalties on the backend,” the aforementioned lawyer said. “But there are penalties for lying. Even in cases that are extremely meritorious, allegations about motive, intent and state of mind are always alleged vaguely because that’s the way you try to position the case. It’s perfectly correct to say, we don’t exactly know what the motivation was because we haven’t interviewed or examined the person and you just have to bring up other factors.”**
>“The reason why it’s permitted is that from their perspective, they would say, we don’t need to know their names and addresses at this point to assert our claims in court,” the anonymous lawyer said. “The context here is that they are trying to allege that it was not just one rogue employee.”
>**It is unclear how much the Raptors or the NBA would weigh intent versus action, assuming that either party acts before the suit plays out in the courts or in behind-the-scenes discussions. In most cases, the NBA waits until legal proceedings play out before deciding on potential punishment for players and teams. It is a safe bet the league will do the same here, which does not preclude the NBA from putting pressure on the parties to resolve the issue behind the scenes before it goes to court.**
You know those ex’s that kept saying to you “Oh who you texting? You cheating on me?” Only to find out later they were really cheating on you? I’m getting some weird vibes here that we are going to end up seeing that Knicks are actually the ones that stole something from Raptors and tried to keep it hush-hush but now it’s out in the open and they are the ones who will get sued and will have to pay.
UnoReverse.mp4.exe