NEW CANAAN, Conn. — The distant view from the northern suburbs stirs memories, emotions and the imagination. It opens a mind’s portal to many a 1990s Midtown Manhattan night when Madison Square Garden was the center of the pro basketball universe. When the Knicks — Dave Checketts’s Knicks — last owned New York.
Twenty-one years after seeing the Knicks fall one victory short of the franchise’s first N.B.A. championship since 1973, 16 years removed from trying to lure Phil Jackson to coach the team on the eve of an improbable second run to the finals, Checketts watches with fascination — and as a fan, he said — as Jackson tackles the daunting challenge he once met, and can admit to missing.