As witnessed by the outpouring of grief yesterday, the gut-wrenching news of Anthony Mason’s passing has clearly touched an enormous amount of NBA players and fans.

While his death has affected everyone in different ways, older fans in particular have been the most wounded. It occurred to me that younger Knick fans may not comprehend how important Mase was to us, the Knicks, the league, and of course New York City during the mid 90s, so I thought I’d share why so many of us are crushed.

To understand how important Mase was, the first thing you need to do is look away from his career stats. To base his worth by his stats is to dismiss him as being not much more than a 3rd round draft pick (53rd), a career 10.9 ppg (9.9 with Knicks), 8.3 rpg (7.7 with Knicks) 50% FG (53% with Knicks) and .3 bpg player which doesn’t exactly jump out to today’s analytic-starved fans.

Believe it or not, statistically Mase’s stats are closely in line with another infamous Knick player from that very same draft. That player would be the 1988 draft’s 3rd pick in the first round: Charles Smith. For comparison, Smith’s career stats are 14.4 ppg (11.3 with Knicks) 5.8 rpg (4.5 with Knicks) .48% FG (.45% with Knicks) and 1.4 bpg (1.2 with Knicks), and as any Knick fan will tell you he would be a completely forgettable player if it wasn’t for the rage his poor play elicited from the bloodthirsty fans of the 90s era Garden. The difference is though is that Mase is a Knick legend and Smith is just a mere footnote in Knick lore.

No, Mase certainly wasn’t a superstar but he was a player everyone knew about and that’s because he was undeniably feared around the league. When Mase put on his Knick jersey, he would wear it like a US Marine that set out to accomplish a mission and would stop at nothing from achieving his objective. In his first year as a Knick the objectives ordered by Pat Riley weren’t too lofty. As a back-up for former Seattle Sonics star Xavier McDaniel, Mase was relegated to simply holding the fort while X-Man was on the bench, so his first minutes with the Knicks that season hovered around just 20 a game. However as the season went on, Riley who would always praised toughness, saw something in Mason and increased his minutes as the season progressed. He wasn’t flashy; he couldn’t shoot particularly well, but Riley and fans alike loved his tenacity.

As the year went on Mason in particular took special heed to Riley’s “No Layup Rule,” and along with Charles Oakley, became the bedrock of the Knicks much improved defensive line as the ’91 Knicks defensive rating went from 105.6 to 102.3 and averaged an extra 2.5 personal fouls a game.

Other teams noticed, not so much by their shooting percentage against Knicks dropping from 47.6% to 45.8% but more so by the way any poor soul that drove to the paint would get manhandled by Mason. It didn’t matter if it was a big name like Hakeem or Barkley that would play near the rim. For other teams Mason made the paint a meat grinder and hardnosed New Yorkers that prided themselves as being from toughest city in world utterly loved it.

The Knicks didn’t have any real marketable stars during the league’s “jam session” era of mid 90s of the Derrick “DC” Coleman, Larry “Grandmama” Johnson, and Shawn Kemp variety, but us grizzled New Yorkers took a little bit of pride in that I think. In a city littered with millions of exhausted and underpaid worker-ants, we didn’t need any shallow pageantry surrounding any of our players because in a sense I think we identified with them on a personal level.

New York during the early 90s was a tough city but we didn’t let any of that prevent us from going to work each morning for a meager living and giving it our absolute all simply because if we didn’t work hard enough for it, someone else was there to take our jobs and probably for less. That’s why when we saw under the radar guys like John Starks, Charles Oakley, and of course Anthony Mason, we claimed them as our own because they largely shared that approach in their jobs as well.

Mason didn’t have the finesse and pure talent many other stars had and he probably knew it, but he seemed to let that fuel him. He had to fight his way into this league and from playing just around a few minutes off the bench; he ended up becoming one of the most important players in bringing the Knicks to the brink of a championship in 1994. Riley knew that more than anyone and a year later he would go on to make Mase the league’s leader in minutes per game (42.2). His career didn’t cap off with the Knicks though because he would go to become an integral piece of the Hornets and an eventual All-Star as a member of the Miami Heat in 2001.

If you didn’t get a chance to watch Mason play and only knowledge of him was the tweets on Mason’s passing, it might leave you thinking he was pretty much just a glorified bully. He wasn’t though. Purely and simply, he was dedicated to his team and that passion just took on a physical nature, as he would always be the first rush to defense of his teammates regardless if they were as tall as Ewing or as small as John Starks. We haven’t seen that kind of loyalty on the Knicks in decades and it’s a major part of the reason older Knick fans aren’t so easily impressed with our recent rosters. Mason knew what it meant to be a Knick and he always made us proud to cheer him on.

It’s been said that the NBA has changed dramatically and the game has moved on from the 90s. Of course we all know that but deep inside the minds of Knick fans, I think there is a still a clamoring for a guy like Mason to put on that jersey again and make us proud. However with Mason’s passing, I think it’s all made us realize that we will never see a player like that again. Rest in Peace Mase. You always made us proud and you will never be forgotten.

Follow Richard Bertin on Twitter @RichardBertin or email him at richbertin@gmail.com