Well in the context of the whole thumbs down thing, and the media bashing him (deservedly, but I digress) while jumping on the Brunson Bandwagon before the ink was dry on his UFA contract, he definitely might have requested a trade behind the scenes. Hell, maybe he did!

He also could have become a passive-aggressive brooding teammate. He could have pulled a Harden, or a Kyrie, or a LaVine.

Instead, he busted his ass all summer to become better, swallowed his pride, accepted being second fiddle (at least to fans and media), adjusted his shot profile, and won most of his critics over with his all-NBA play, this time not in empty buildings or with quirky 3pt shooting.

I don’t think that earns him sainthood or anything, but I appreciate that he saw it through, knowing how many others would have been broken by the harshness of the criticism directed towards him. I honestly didn’t think he had it in him to come back to the degree that he did.

“Cam is great,” LeBron James said after the game. “He has a knack for just being around the ball, getting deflections. I guarantee in the minutes that he’s played, he’s probably one of the league leaders in deflections, steals. Anything around the ball, he’s just really good.”

And the appreciation didn’t end there.

When Reddish left the locker room, he made his way to the Crypto.com Arena court, where there was a line of eager Lakers fans — several dozen deep — waiting to meet and greet the wing player who is quickly becoming a reliable team contributor.

Randle shouldn’t be controversial. We all know he’s the most athletic idiot in the world. If we could trade him straight-up for anyone else on his level, we’d do it in a second. The problem is that there are very few players on his level.

The biggest difference with him from Melo and Randle is he played defense every night and you could never question his effort.
Plus Ewing was just a much better and more impactful player than both.

Do we need more than those three “little” things?
They make all the difference in the world.

ewing gave the thumb before it was cool

”They’re annoying me,” Ewing said, talking calmly but firmly about Knicks fans after the game. ”If they’re going to act the way they act, they might as well stay home. If they’re going to support us, then support us. If you go other places, when the team is playing bad, the fans still support them. Here, they support you one minute, then if something goes wrong, they jump off the bandwagon. I’m just tired of it. It has been like that for 12 years. I’m fed up with it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/09/sports/ewing-calls-foul-on-booing-knick-fans.html

The biggest difference with him from Melo and Randle is he played defense every night and you could never question his effort. Plus Ewing was just a much better and more impactful player than both. But I assume Ewing’s offensive game would’ve been pretty scrutinized here.