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Warner Bros. Discovery and its CEO David Zaslav are taking the NBA to court — the legal one, not parquet, and that battle carries some potential baggage.

Why it matters: A four-decade relationship faces an ugly end or an even uglier continuation.

Catch up quick: Last week, the NBA signed new TV deals with Disney, Comcast and Amazon. The agreements sidelined WBD's TNT. So WBD sued the NBA for breaching its "rights to match any third party offer."

Reality check: Regardless of whether WBD wins the court case, the ploy comes with some reputational risk as the company is in danger of looking like a rowdy teammate to other leagues in future media rights discussions.

"Even in the ultimate 'win' where Turner prevailed in court, it would be difficult to see how this would be viewed positively by investors with WBD committing ~$20 billion over the next 11 years despite the pressure the company faces from the linear ecosystem. Furthermore, WBD could face negative implications of suing the NBA in its relationships with other leagues and team owners," MoffettNathanson analysts wrote Monday morning.

WBD has reportedly hired Edelman to make the case that putting games on Amazon would disenfranchise a large segment of NBA fans, including minorities.

The dispute has already had one effect: The NBA's deal with Disney, Amazon and Comcast reportedly contains no matching rights.

Friction point: The legal dispute comes down to a differing interpretation of how WBD's matching rights work for games distributed on streaming.

In its legal filings on Friday, WBD included its 108-page media deal with the NBA from 2014, which detailed its matching rights. While there is lengthy and very specific language regarding games on broadcast and cable television, there is little to no language about streaming, as that business was still in its infancy.

In one of the few mentions of "internet distribution," the document essentially states that if WBD wanted to match an outside deal that would put games on streaming, it would have to propose that same distribution.

Essentially, WBD would have to agree to put all of its games on Max, but its proposal included TNT. Amazon's deal was a streaming-only agreement.

WBD argued in its complaint that that shouldn't matter, as Amazon's deal contained games that previously aired on TNT. "That is exactly what happened here: Amazon made an offer for Cable Rights as defined in the [Matching Rights Exhibit], and TBS matched it."

Warner Bros. Discovery pulls risky legal play to keep NBA rights

A four-decade relationship is set to come to an ugly end or an even uglier continuation.

National Basketball Association (NBA)

Warner Bros. Discovery and its CEO David Zaslav are taking the NBA to court — the legal one, not parquet, and that battle carries some potential baggage.Why it matters: A four-decade relationship faces an ugly end or an even uglier continuation.

Warner Bros. Discovery pulls risky legal play to keep NBA rights

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