Knicks blast Adam Silver for dragging out bombshell Raptors investigation

The Knicks blamed Adam Silver’s bias for the NBA dragging its feet to arbitrate their explosive dispute against the Raptors. 

“We’ve been waiting for any direction from the NBA on next steps in this matter for months — proving our point that the NBA is not capable of appropriately and fairly handling this serious theft of proprietary and confidential files,” read a statement to The Post from an MSG Sports spokesman. “Unfortunately, because of the clear conflict of interest between the Commissioner and the Chairman of the NBA, there has been complete silence from the league.” 

In August of 2023, the Knicks filed a lawsuit in court alleging their former video coordinator Ike Azotam had stolen “thousands of proprietary files” such as scouting secrets and shared them with his new employer, the Raptors. 

The court ruled in June that the NBA should handle the dispute and requested an update by Dec. 13.

The Knicks and Raptors agreed in a joint filing Friday that there was no update. 

“As of the date of this letter, the NBA has not yet set a process or schedule, and discovery has not commenced,” it read. 

The Knicks had sought damages of more than $10 million from Toronto while claiming Silver is too compromised to fairly arbitrate the dispute because he’s beholden to Larry Tanenbaum, a part-owner of the Raptors and Chairman of the NBA. 

Asked in July about the Knicks questioning his objectivity, Silver said, “I won’t respond.” The commissioner added at the time that “we did receive notice of the court’s decision [to compel NBA arbitration] and are in the process of working through those issues at the league office right now.” 

Apparently, there wasn’t much work done. 

Knicks owner James Dolan has been warring with Silver over the NBA’s revenue-sharing system and new media rights deals, among other things.

Just last month, the Knicks accused the NBA of harassing through an investigation into the promotion of assistant coach Rick Brunson. 

“We see this as more harassment of the Knicks due to our opposition to certain NBA matters,” an MSG Sports spokesperson said. 

The league’s investigation concluded with the Knicks being cleared of anything improper. 

Josh Hart was standing close to Trae Young’s dice celebration on the Knicks logo Wednesday but said he didn’t see or process the taunt in real time. 

“Do I care that he did it? I don’t know if I care if he did it. I didn’t like it,” Hart said. “At the time, I didn’t see him do it. But, you know, I’m not going to talk about something that happened two days ago that no one can change.” 

Young pretended to play craps as he dribbled out the clock in Atlanta’s win, symbolizing his team’s trip to Vegas for the NBA Cup semifinals.

It was a planned celebration and left unchecked by the Knicks. 

Asked if he would’ve tried to steal the ball if he recognized what was happening, Hart said, “I don’t know. I was heated. We were obviously losing the game. I wasn’t paying attention until I heard the crowd get a little feisty. I turned and looked and I couldn’t see what he was doing. It looked like he might have been picking the ball up or something. I looked away and walked away and I guess he did it again. In the moment, I didn’t see it. 

“He wants to embrace the villain thing,” Hart added. “The media loves a villain. He’s going to embrace that. I couldn’t care less. I think at that point I would be happy we won the game and move on. But we’re two different people.” 

Former Knick Isaiah Hartenstein, perhaps the team’s most physical player last season before heading to the Thunder in free agency, said he would’ve protected the logo from Young’s taunts. 

“I wouldn’t have let him roll the dice at midcourt,” Hartenstein told reporters Wednesday. “If I was there, for sure. Nah. I would’ve done something.”