AssetReferenceSprite null state

Hey! I've been working on implementing addressables to my game and have encountered a very strange behaviour. When I'm setting up a AssetReferenceSprite variable in my ScriptableObject and set it to "none" and then later do a null check on the variable it passes the null check. The value according to my IDE becomes "[] null" which is not "null". The type is not an array so this makes no sense to me. My current workaround is to check my old Sprite reference if it is null or not which works. I would love to know if this is intentional or a bug and why it is behaving like this.

Regards Anton