Hip hop didn’t exist the last time the New York Knicks won an NBA Championship.

On May 10, 1973, Clyde Frazier and Willis Reed’s Knickerbockers finished off the Los Angeles Lakers in five games to claim their second NBA title in four seasons. Three months later, on August 11, DJ Kool Herc hosted a back-to-school jam in the rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, an event now commonly recognized as the birth of hip hop (although the exact date of the party has been subject to debate).

Since then, hip hop and hoops have been linked as twin pillars of the city’s culture. New York, from Rucker Park in Harlem to the Cage on West 4th, is a basketball town—and hip hop is the soundtrack to its streets. Some of the best to ever do it on the hardwood were born and raised within the five boroughs , while the list of rappers from New York is even more impressive.

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when New York rappers name-drop the team or some of the greatest players in Knicks history .…