It took 53 years for the New York Knicks to win another NBA championship. Fifty-three years!

Back when the Knicks won their second title in four years by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in 1973, Walt Frazier was making about $300,000 per season. To put that in perspective, the going rate for a two-way contract in today’s NBA is around $650,000. In 1973, the median household income in this country was around $10,500. Today, we’re talking in the $90,000 range. To say times have changed is an understatement.

Obviously, none of the players in today’s NBA were even close to being born. Not even LeBron James (that happened in 1984). Only nine of the current head coaches in the NBA are old enough to have been alive during the 1973 postseason.

Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, Mike Brown and everybody on or associated with this team will never have to stop celebrating. They won’t have to buy meals, homes, coffees, slices of pizza or anything else for the rest of their lives in New York. We’ve seen how the Knicks and their fans adore the players of the past, whether they won a title or not. Now these guys have broken one of the longest droughts in sports.

Would you say the Knicks broke a curse. What was the curse of the Knicks? Did they make a Faustian Bargain when they won the first NBA Draft Lottery in 1985 to land Patrick Ewing? Did they get cursed when Ewing was traded to Seattle in a 12-player, five-pick and four-team deal in 2000? Was the curse James Dolan-related? That seems unlikely considering he still very much owns the team and will soon have a new banner hanging from the Madison Square Garden rafters.

Still, curse or not, breaking a long streak, jinx or drought for a sports franchise or city is always a massive story. Where does the Knicks’ broken drought rank among these? Let’s make a list!

(Fair warning: I’m staying away from hockey and soccer because I don’t know enough about those sports).

10. 1995 Atlanta Braves (38 years): There are many other potential droughts, jinxes or curses to consider for this list, but this gives me a chance to wedge my fandom in. I love the Atlanta Braves, and watching them win it all over Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton and the Cleveland Indians in 1995 was a dream come true. Tom Glavine pitched an immaculate Game 6 and David Justice hit the home run to send 13-year-old me into a frenzy. It was the first time since Hank Aaron and Lew Burdette led the 1957 Milwaukee Braves to a championship.

9. 2015 Golden State Warriors (40 years): Four decades may not seem like a lot but the Warriors’ win was special in 2015. The Warriors won the title with Rick Barry in 1975, then mostly became a bumbling franchise for decades after that. They made the controversial decision to trade fan favorite Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut in 2012, making a leap of faith that Stephen Curry could handle the franchise. It paid off in the 2014-15 season, when they dominated the league, and they changed basketball for the next decade-plus.

8. 2017 Philadelphia Eagles (57 years): The Philly Special, with Nick Foles catching a key touchdown in the Super Bowl instead of throwing it, was the highlight of the Eagles taking down Tom Brady in an amazing Super Bowl showdown. The organization hadn’t won a championship since 1960, well before the Super Bowl was invented. The Eagles lost the Super Bowl twice in between those titles, one of them in a heartbreaker to Brady and the Patriots in 2005. I had this higher than eighth until I remembered a fan ate literal horse poop in celebration.

7. 2020 Kansas City Chiefs (50 years): The Chiefs hadn’t won a Super Bowl since 1970, when they hammered the Minnesota Vikings. They didn’t make another Super Bowl until 2020, by which point Andy Reid had entrusted Patrick Mahomes with the keys to the franchise. That resulted in one of the most impressive individual seasons we’ve ever seen, including a 21-point fourth quarter to secure Super Bowl LIV. Fifty years, erased in the blink of an eye.

6. 2021 Milwaukee Bucks (50 years): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson led the Bucks to the championship in the organization’s third year in 1971. It was a remarkable feat by the Bucks in such a short amount of time, but a coin flip landing Abdul-Jabbar will accelerate the process. After that, the Bucks made the NBA Finals in 1974, then not again until 2021. The Bucks thought they lost Giannis Antetokounmpo to a knee injury in the Eastern Conference finals. He missed two games, came back for the start of the finals and then had an incredible run against the Phoenix Suns. The Bucks lost the first two games before winning four straight. Giannis closed it out with a 50-point, 14-rebound and five-block performance in Game 6 to win it all.

5. 2005 Chicago White Sox, Curse of the Black Sox Scandal (88* years): Technically the franchise went 88 years between World Series championships, but the Black Sox Scandal started in 1919, when the players threw the 1919 World Series in exchange for some money. You know… without legalized betting apps or player prop over/unders involved. Then, the White Sox organization didn’t come close to winning a championship for nearly a century, making the playoffs just four times between 1920 and 2004. But the White Sox eventually cracked through by sweeping the Houston Astros in the 2005 World Series.

4. 2026 New York Knicks (53 years): The Knicks were as bumbling and pathetic as a franchise could be. They went decades without even agreeing to a contract extension with a first-round pick coming off their rookie deal. But they had the spotlight on them, because the Knicks and NYC are a big deal. The Knicks going from a punchline to no longer a punching bag was a big step, Now, they’re the NBA champions in a year when the Western Conference winner was supposed to be crowned in the NBA Finals. The Knicks figured it out in spectacular fashion, and they’re legitimately the best team in the NBA. Finally.

3. 2016 Chicago Cubs, Curse of the Billy Goat (108 years): One hundred and eight years. That was the amount of time between the Cubs’ championship in 1908 and their next championship in 2016. Technically, the Curse of the Billy Goat was only 71 years, after it was slapped on the Cubs when the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern was asked to leave the stadium. Why? Because his pet goat was bothering fans. I guess the history of service animals goes back farther than I assumed. Or maybe the 1940s just had pet goats all over the place in metropolitan cities? I’m honestly so thrown by the pet goat part of this.

Regardless, the Cubs broke the curse in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series in the 10th inning. Ben Zobrist drove in Albert Almora, and Miguel Montero made it a two-run game by knocking in Anthony Rizzo. The Cubs gave up a run in the bottom of the 10th, but Mike Montgomery closed it out to break the curse.

2. 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers (52-year city drought): The only thing keeping this from being the top curse/jinx/drought break in sports history is the Cavaliers didn’t rally from a 3-0 series deficit. However, the Cavaliers pulled off the greatest NBA Finals series comeback we’ve ever seen. Teams have gone down 3-1 in the NBA Finals 39 times. Thirty-eight times, that team lost the series. One time, that team came back to win the championship. That was the 2016 Cavaliers.

They also did it against the 73-9 Warriors, who looked destined to win the championship to cap off the best regular season in NBA history. Instead, the Cavs brought incredible shame on them, and “the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead” became a running meme on the Internet. LeBron James got the block, Kyrie Irving hit the shot, Kevin Love got the stop and the Cavs ended more than a half century of the city of Cleveland failing to win a championship. They no longer had to mention the Cleveland Indians/Guardians in the 1940s or the Cleveland Browns (1964) before the Super Bowl was invented (1967).

1. 2004 Boston Red Sox, Curse of the Bambino (86 years): For 86 years, the Red Sox were the biggest joke in sports history. They sold Babe Ruth’s contract to the New York Yankees on Jan. 5, 2020, one season removed from winning the 1918 World Series. The Sox’s owner did it to finance some theater endeavors, because that’s just how stuff was before the Roaring ’20s. Ruth went on to win four World Series with the Yankees and was arguably the biggest figure in baseball for a century or so.

In 2003, the Red Sox were on the brink of ending this curse against the Yankees in the ALCS before Aaron Boone hit a home run in the bottom of the 11th in Game 7 to send the Red Sox home again. One year later, they were on the verge of getting swept by the Yankees in the ALCS before pulling off a 3-0 series comeback. They won the ALCS, swept the World Series and took part in a horrific Jimmy Fallon movie.