Ty Lawson helped lead North Carolina to its 2009 National Championship under Roy Williams, but the warm feelings left by that success clearly have not lingered into the 2020s. On Memorial Day, Lawson unleashed a profanity-riddled tirade directed at Williams on his Instagram for badmouthing him to NBA general managers. The former Tar Heel has bounced around the pros from the Denver Nuggets (2009-2015) to the Houston Rockets and Indiana Pacers (2015-16), the Sacramento Kings (2016-17) and the Washington Wizards (2018) but has been playing in the Chinese Basketball Association for the last two years.
“Who talks sh*t about someone who won them a championship ……your weird … I got messages from 10 nba gm’s that said it came out your mouth ….that’s why I don’t Fu** with Carolina or support anything y’all do. It’s a blessing that I don’t open my mouth about shit …: they ask me why I don’t show love to North Carolina ….Roy Williams knows why.”
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On the program’s official twitter account, UNC fans voted on their favorite point guards in program history, with Lawson earning the most votes just a day before his Instagram story was posted. If there were a re-vote today, safe to say the results would have been a bit different. Lawson retweeted the vote, which was his first tweet in nine months, so the bad blood must not have cut too deep. Past tweets have told a different story of his past relationship with UNC and Roy Williams, so it appears as though this bad beef is a new development.
Lawson arrived at North Carolina as the No. 7 overall player in the 2006 class and the No. 1 ranked point guard. Lawson started for UNC and Coach Williams for three seasons, capping his Carolina career with the 2009 National Championship.
A uber-quick guard, tailormade for UNC’s up-tempo offense, Lawson had a knack for beating the defense down the floor and scoring in the lane and at the basket. The Maryland native remains the fastest guard with the ball in the Roy Williams era at North Carolina. Lawson was named the ACC All-Freshman in 2007, honorable mention All-ACC as a sophomore in 2008, and First-Team All-ACC and ACC Player of the Year in 2009. Lawson was also a consensus Second-Team All-American and won the Bob Cousey Award (Nation’s best point guard) after the 2009 season.
Lawson averaged 10.2 points and 5.6 assists as a freshman in 2006-07, 12.7 points and 5.2 assists as a sophomore in 2007-08, and 16.6 points and 6.6 assists as a junior in 2008-09. In three seasons at Carolina, Lawson shot 51.6 percent from the field and 40.2 percent from three.
Lawson was selected No. 18 overall in the 2009 NBA Draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves and was traded on draft night to the Denver Nuggets. Lawson played six seasons for the Nuggets from 2009-15 and was the starting point guard for five. On April 9, 2011, Lawson became the first player in NBA history to make his first 10 three-point attempts to start a game. He went 10-of-11 from behind three-point range and finished the game with a career-high 37 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assistsLawson played in 53 games for the Houston Rockets and 13 games for the Indiana Pacers in 2015-16. In 2016-17, Lawson played in 69 games and started 24 for the Sacramento Kings.
Lawson has been arrested multiple times for driving under the influence (DUI).
In 2008, 20-year-old Lawson pleaded guilty to underage drinking and driving after registering a .03 blood-alcohol level during a traffic stop in Chapel Hill, N.C. He was not charged with a DUI because he was below the legal limit of .08 BAC. Additional charges of violating a noise ordinance and driving with a revoked or suspended license were dropped and Lawson was required only to complete 20 hours of community service.
In April 2012 in Arapahoe County, Colorado, Lawson was cited for careless driving, driving with a restricted license and permitting an unauthorized person to drive his car. Lawson was arrested in Denver on January 29, 2013 for avoiding prosecution for these offenses. He later pleaded guilty to allowing an unauthorized person to drive and the other charges were dropped.
On August 17, 2013, Lawson and his girlfriend, Ashley Pettiford, were arrested by police in Arapahoe County responding to a domestic violence call. Lawson was arrested on suspicion of committing two misdemeanors, domestic violence-related harassment and property damage. Both Lawson and Pettiford were released on $1,000 bond and charges were ultimately dropped.
On January 23, 2015, Lawson was arrested in Denver after driving almost twice the speed limit while under the influence of alcohol. In that incident, he admitted to police that he had a prior arrest for DUI in Missouri. One of the conditions of his $1,500 bond was that he not drink alcohol.
On July 14, 2015, Lawson was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of driving under the influence. On July 17, a Denver judge ruled that Lawson would be required to spend a month at a residential rehabilitation center before facing DUI charges in either Colorado or California.
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This is not the first time a former UNC player has had a social media outburst directed at the hall of fame coach reportedly blackballing him to NBA GMs. In 2017, Rashad McCants relayed a similar message to the Charlotte Observer.
“I’ve been told, numerous conversations and numerous sources, that I’ve been blackballed,” McCants said. “And it’s just the way the league is sometimes. When one person who is a higher-up, Hall of Famer, says don’t touch him, they won’t. And that’s just how it is.”
McCants’ numerous outbursts were seen as indicative of his personal issues, but it’s interesting to see another former player criticize Williams for the same issue. If there’s one thing that Williams can never be accused of, it’s dancing around the truth, considering he called this year’s team the “least gifted” he’s ever coached.