Over the years, Pixar has become known for releasing beloved and critically-acclaimed animated feature films. Its latest offering is Soul, which was released on Disney+ on Christmas Day, and features a scene that references the fortunes of the New York Knicks. Soul is about a music teacher named Joe Gardner who gets a chance to fulfill a dream of performing jazz music only to suffer an accident that sends him to the Great Beyond.

It is in the Great Beyond and Great Before where the character of Joe meets different souls, with one claiming that he has been messing with “this team” for decades, with that team being the Knicks as one of their players misses a dunk and the announcer states that the team has dropped another game.

Pixar has long been known for their clever references and easter eggs in their animated films, but this is probably the first one that is about the New York Knicks, whose fortunes are apparently so bad that the only explanation is that some otherworldly force was messing with the team and causing them to lose games.

But that funny jab from Pixar's latest offering would actually explain a lot of the team’s years of misfortune, which include multiple losing seasons and year after year of missing out on big name free agents.

The Knicks have indeed mostly struggled in the past two decades, missing the playoffs for the past seven seasons and looks headed for another rebuilding year. In the last decade, New York has had just three winning records and three playoff appearances, and has not yet returned to the postseason since playing in the 2013 Conference Semifinals.