This is what Knicks fans desperately need to see from Phil Jackson: the always confident, occasionally arrogant and randomly odd figure that cut such a wide swath through the NBA for so many years — first as an iconoclast player, later as a coach who knew that he had a better-than-average chance to win every single game in which he ever worked.
They don’t need false bravado and empty promises. They are smarter than that, and if anyone should understand the level of wariness Knicks fans presently employ, it should be a man whose association with the team and the city reaches back nearly half a century.