So reporters had no idea that, early in his career, Ewing paid for each of his teammates to come down to spend a few days with him in his native Jamaica during the offseason. Or that Ewing would regularly tell the younger players to buy whatever they wanted at Friedman’s Shoes during trips to Atlanta, because he’d pay for it. Or that when he learned the wife of Chris Jent—someone he was teammates with for just three months in 1996—developed a brain tumor, he and Van Gundy sent checks the next week to cover the entirety of her chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
