If you don’t understand, don’t talk nonsense about the “New York gangsters” back then. There was a point guard named Anthony Mason (assistant coach of the Rockets during Van Gundy’s era) who was known as the “King of New York Killers.” Malone sighed when he saw his body. Rather, he has two arms like iron rods, a point guard, has the weight of a center, and averages close to 10 rebounds per game. Here is his personal introduction. Years later, the rats who lived in Madison Garden in the 1990s will tell you. Said: "These people kill people above our heads every day." This is of course an exaggeration, because although everyone on the Knicks wears a murderer's face, they still have to consider killing people in front of 20,000 spectators. Check out the IQ of the FBI. But this does not prevent them from using other methods to make their opponents unable to survive or die. This arena is like this: if you stare at a person's face for too long, or if you dare to dunk a basket with itchy hands, you are likely to be slapped in the face with your fingers spread out in the next round, and the audience - the leader It's a great director - I'm so happy, it's like watching a killing movie.

When classmate Anthony Mason went to New York in 1991, this was the scene there. After Pat Riley led the Lakers to become the most colorful team in NBA history on the West Coast, he twisted his mentality and created another style on the East Coast, like a monster scientist fighting each other. His men are full of monsters like Ewing, O'Cali, and Charles Smith. These people are very similar to the bad guys who stare at you from the dark shadow when you play ball on the street corner in New York, intending to come up to you and give you a slap in the face, and then pick your pocket. . Anthony Mason fit the twisted aesthetic of New Yorkers—a time when Madison rejected artists, bards, and thinkers, inviting only beasts that had to be caged. Classmate Mason's arms were as thick as iron rods, and his body was so strong that Karl Malone, who practiced running with a parachute on his back every day, would have been ashamed of himself. A man with the height of a shooting guard had the weight of a center. He spent four years at the University of Tennessee - a tough guy like him would sit out four years in college, of course because no NBA team wanted him. Of course, he was luckier than Rodman - Rodman had no ball to play after graduating from college and went to the airport - in 1988, he was selected in the third round and went to New Jersey.

This is what the so-called secret shot means: He played less than two hours in the Nets game, then went to Denver the next year and played 21 minutes in one season. To say he is the mascot is a bit unfair, because the mascot has been dancing for much longer than he has. So when he went to New York, he was not afraid of anything. He had already made the plan "If you don't want me, I will go to the cement factory."

This is the saying that Huainan is called orange and Huaibei is called tangerine. Not quite an orange, but a cucumber is always more than enough. Mason didn't even frown when Ewing told him about the murderous and hustling tricks in the locker room. Go out on the court wearing a New York jersey and just look at the opponent. The people of New York couldn't help but raise their thumbs: "What a hero." He grabbed rebounds, charged for fouls, pushed and used his hands, and when someone dunked on Ewing (which was rare), he immediately went up and glared at others. This was him. Someone asked, isn't there the famous old bastard Charles Okali who does this job? Answer: What O'Cali did was underhanded, while Mason did what he did in a dignified way. If a guy doesn't give you a sinister smile every night but instead jumps around like a muscular little cockroach in front of your eyes and feels good about himself, you'll find him annoying too.

Of course he doesn’t just do this.

In an era when zone defense was not so fashionable—to put it another way, allowing zone defense is a rather nonsense and unmanly thing—personal defensive ability was a very important thing. Just like one-on-one battles cannot be called brothers, confrontation with opponents is the foundation of a man's foothold in the world. Mason, like Rodman, is a monster who is short but smart and energetic on defense. Although they don't have the conditions of Ewing, Mourning, and Robinson to be condescending and scare the cutter with blocks, they are absolutely unambiguous in one-on-one situations. They have the courage to show off their horns to the lion even though I am a calf. gas. In the 1994 Finals, when Damn and Ewing fought against each other and blood was everywhere, as soon as Riley gave the order, Mason rushed like a mad dog towards the most elegant center in history, giving Damn a headache. Incomparable. This is nothing more than the homework he must do every night: study all the guys in the league's 4th and 5th positions, and then make them suffer physical and mental pain one by one, keeping them awake at night.

So he established himself in New York and spent his golden years from 25 to 29 years old. At the age of 29, he played 82 games for New York, leading the league in 42 minutes per game. He was a universal perpetual motion machine and could be used in gasoline commercials. But the disadvantage of New York is that it pursues fame and wealth, emphasizes brilliance over reality, and likes the new but hates the old.

The summer of 1996 was about to change. Jordan signed an annual salary of 30 million, Shark moved west to Los Angeles, and Mourning settled in Florida. New Yorkers were not satisfied with the status quo and wanted to mess with this chaos. Signing Alan Houston and Chris Childs was obviously not enough, and they set their sights on Larry Johnson. The Rookie of the Year in the 1991-92 season, a member of the Dream Team, with a low post attack ability comparable to Barkley's, boxer-like muscles, and a starter in the Eastern Conference All-Stars. The light like gold coins flashed in the eyes of New Yorkers. In the summer when Mason was 29 years old, he was out of the Knicks and sent to Charlotte.

Throwing a 30-year-old blue-collar worker into a remote and uninhabited team is like the test that the Greek gods love to impose on human beings to hone their will and quality. It's really not a happy situation to happen to people. Except for Rice, who is barely a figure on the Hornets, the others are Divac, who is left over from the Lakers, Curry, a shooter who is too old to run, and Bogues, a 32-year-old 160-centimeter point guard. There is a former All-Star player, the 37-year-old Tom Chambers. It was just such a group of people, but it didn't bother Mason to look at it. Players born in the third round have such an advantage: they have endured all the hardships in the world. After all, this is an NBA team, not a cement factory.

Just because Charlotte is in ruins and needs to mend holes everywhere, Mason has the opportunity to show off what he has learned. Being a father and a mother at the same time, there is a lot of boiling and drying. On the defensive end, he grabbed fourth in the league in rebounds, defended the opponent's ace, and shouted orders to his teammates. On the offensive end, in addition to slamming into the paint like a meatball, he actually started to play Yangchun Baixue's mid-range jump shot. The best part is that the Hornets lacked playmakers, which allowed Mason to discover his strengths.

The business of organizing forwards has been around since ancient times. Havlicek and Larry Bird are masters of this skill. They can move around freely on the periphery and send out subtle passes to benefit their teammates. The king of low-post singles like Karl Malone seems to be able to provide back-to-the-basket support. But Mason has no lethal attack skills and no post-up ability, but in his thirties, he has developed his own image as an organizer, like flowers growing on an old tree or cactus growing on stones. He often moves his sturdy back to the top of the arc to hold the ball, frighten opposing defenders with jump shots, and then either drives straight to the basket, or looks for cutters from the wings with his flounder-like eyes. The passing line is concise and there are very few mistakes. That strong body destined to do rough work actually had the heart of a conductor. It was really blind and mismatched for marriage. But Mason never tired of it and worked very hard, resting for less than five minutes in each game. The Charlotte Hornets achieved a team-high 54 wins despite losing Mourning and Larry Johnson. The first achievement seems to be Glenn Rice, the All-Star Game MVP and third in the league in scoring, but Rice himself should understand: when there is a universal perpetual motion machine on the team, it takes over defense, rebounds, fouls, assists, intimidating opponents, and encouraging teammates every day. , and after occasionally scoring a few triple-doubles, he really had nothing else to do except score jump shots.

This year is so lively, of course, fists and kicks cannot be missing to add to the fun. But he said that since Mason left New York, he no longer had the Iron Fist brothers to serve him, so he was inevitably left alone. There are always people with itchy fists and feet, hoping to use practical actions to tell him that "it is not ambiguous to deal with a lonely brother like you." However, Mason was openly unafraid. He was in the Cao camp and his heart was in the Han Dynasty, with a score in New York. Where is New York? In 1994, after Miller scored 25 points in a single quarter and blasted Madison, the Knicks generals reflected, and the first sentence was "We should give him a hard foul." In 1997, Karl Malone was about to win the MVP. When playing against the Hornets, he got carried away and forgot that there was a big bug watching behind him. Malone just found an opportunity and was about to lay up. Mason stabbed out diagonally and pushed the most muscular man in the NBA with a horizontal arm. Ma Long was furious and violent. Seeing that Mason was surrounded by old, weak, sick and disabled people, he punched Mason on the back. The two hugged each other and rolled to the audience on the court, fighting evenly. The referee split it up and each scored fifty big boards. The wonderful thing is that although they looked like little hunks when they hit the ground, both of them played well on the court, and Mason even had a triple-double. From then on, they cherished each other, as the saying goes, "No one knows each other without playing", and they actually became good friends.

In this way, Mason supported the Hornets forward. During this period, there were also Anthony Walker and his like who imitated his mathematical methods and became point forwards. Three years later, Charlotte went to the Heat at the age of 34 and still played 41 minutes per game. With a height of 201 centimeters, he has been an inside man throughout his life. That is to say, in those years with the Hornets, they would shoot a few three-pointers when they were in a hurry or because of time constraints. At other times, he is always in the paint - so it is a miracle that he can play in the NBA until he is 36 years old. In the year when his career ended with the Bucks, he was still able to play 33 minutes per game.

Like the people in the New York Gang - refer to striptease enthusiast Ewing - he does good things and bad things, and is not very innocent off the court. In 1998, he and his cousin accidentally got into an affair with a pair of sisters who were 14 and 15 years old respectively. Unlike the 1993 Blazers sex party incident in Salt Lake City, Mason was not directly arrested this time. His lawyer was also an idiot. He first claimed that the brothers were Liu Xiahui and did not do anything to the women. Maybe he felt something was wrong, so he added that although there was some sexual intercourse, it was not rape. The New York Post finally had a chance to take revenge on Mason - Larry Johnson's performance in the Knicks was like sleepwalking - and quickly came up with the best headline of the year: "Mason played, but didn't score." Mason's mother became quite anxious when there were too many off-field activities, and she would occasionally express her dissatisfaction with her son to the media. Perhaps this is the reason why Mason retired when he was still in his prime - after all, if a person can play 70 games and 33 minutes in a season, he is far from retiring.

In addition to his reputation as a rebounding monster, defensive champion, and point forward, the most interesting memory is his free throws. Every free throw, this person will hold the ball with both hands, then release his right hand and point directly at the basket, and send it out with his left hand. This set is as complicated as a religious ceremony, always making opponents who are eager to grab rebounds confused about the rhythm. The Rockets' Chuck Hayes has a little bit of his charm, but when it comes to on-site visual effects, it's really far behind