When he was coaching in Chicago, Phil Jackson was watching a baseball game one spring afternoon with Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the Bulls and the White Sox, who volunteered what Reinsdorf considered an important tenet of proprietary success.  Reinsdorf told Jackson that he had, after many years of running sports franchises, recognized the need to have a general manager with whom he could argue. On organizational matters, diversity of opinion was sometimes preferable to authoritarian rule.  Jackson shared that story last spring during an interview in New Jersey when I asked him what Michael Jordan had done wrong to that point as the Charlotte Bobcats’ owner. In effect, Jackson said, Jordan had hired his friends, too many yes men.  This was long before Jackson could have known how that information might come in handy for him while negotiating with the Knicks. Did he slip those wise words into a fortune cookie over lunch with James L. Dolan or, better yet, insist on such language in his contract?  Unless the Knicks have called a major news conference for Tuesday to announce the re-signing of Chris Smith, Jackson is coming home — if that is what New York can still be considered for a Montana man who has succeeded monumentally in Chicago and Los Angeles.  He will, after all, work for Dolan, the imperious Knicks owner, and try to build the contender Madison Square Garden has not had since — well, before the playoff series against Indiana last spring. All right, last season’s 54 victories were no more than the illusion of contention, and that will not necessarily cut it for Jackson, the most credentialed coach in N.B.A. history, as he takes on the late-career challenge of running the whole show for the first time.  Whatever that means, we should add, under the terms he has apparently agreed to with Dolan, who is not Reinsdorf or Jerry Buss, the late former Lakers owner, and will no doubt interpret the arrangement he has made with Jackson according to his mood and the score of that night’s game.  Jackson is too smart not to know that, so why is he giving up at least part of his beachfront retirement lifestyle in Los Angeles? It’s simple. Being a Zen philosopher without a team becomes tiresome for a man who has competed all his life. And beyond the crazy money — and who in his right mind would turn down about $12 million a year? — it is really close to a no-lose proposition.  If Jackson can actually build the Knicks’ first championship team since he wore their uniform in 1973, a Manhattan street and possibly a Staten Island ferry will be renamed for him. If he just makes the Knicks seriously matter again, that will probably be enough for long-suffering fans.  If things do not go well and Jackson’s celebrity fades in Dolan’s easily jaded eyes, the inevitable war will break out, chaos will ensue, and history tells us that most of the blame, in the final analysis, will fall on Dolan.  Jackson must have heard that Larry Brown wound up earning about $30 million for his one turbulent season of coaching at the Garden. Brown, 73, is back to being hailed a genius for his fine work at Southern Methodist, while Dolan continues writing large checks to bail himself out of his latest jam.  It is quite possible that Jackson could bruise, even bleed, at the Garden, which has been an administrative shark tank for decades, long before Dolan. He could make lousy personnel moves, hire a bad coach and wind up being panned as an executive.  On top of that, to all but the oldest Knicks fans, Jackson is already an outsider of sorts. He is Jordan’s guy, scrooge of the 1990s.  Jackson has not been a Knick since 1978. Unless the Knicks complicate matters as a playoff bottom-feeder, the timing appears to be perfect for a reunion. Jackson may not be up for the rigors of coaching anymore, but he is only 68, a year older than Donnie Walsh was when the Knicks hired him for the same job in 2008.  Hillary Clinton will be 68 in 2016, when she may run for president. Which is the more difficult position, running the Knicks or the country? Jackson may be able to provide an answer by then.  Why not him? The erstwhile maverick who wore jeans and sandals to his first interview with the Bulls donned suspenders while pitching on television for TD Waterhouse, a brokerage and wealth management company. Now he is buying low with the Knicks, an underachieving group that with tweaks and good health could return to the top half of a weak Eastern Conference by next season.  By the summer of 2015, Jackson would have his chance to play in the free-agent market and try to restore glory as other Knicks icons attempted: Willis Reed as coach in the late 1970s and Dave DeBusschere as general manager a few years later.  Both failed. Both were fired. Their playing legacies remained pristine and even grew in stature as a result of their inability to recreate a past to which Jackson, too, remains indelibly connected.  His two rings with the Knicks and his 11 as a coach are permanently his. It is Dolan who still lacks his first and the understanding of what it takes. So take Reinsdorf’s advice, Zen Capitalist. Take your shot. Make the bully owner back down on defense.
Even if Jackson cannot build the Knicks into a champion, the team’s owner, James L. Dolan, is likely to be blamed for the resulting chaos.