Former UNC Star PG Ty Lawson Says Roy Williams Has Been Slandering Him to NBA GMs

Ty Lawson spent three seasons at the University of North Carolina under head coach Roy Williams as their starting point guard and spent eight seasons in the NBA. While at UNC, Lawson helped lead the Tar Heels to the 2009 National Championship and was named the ACC Player of the Year. Counted among things like CS:GO DFS contests, a Ty Lawson Instagram rant in 2020 against his former head coach is not something that we expected to happen on Memorial Day.

In a now deleted IG story, Lawson basically implies that Roy Williams has been talking shit about him to NBA GMs:

“Who talks s— about someone who won them a championship …” Lawson wrote in his Instagram story. “(You’re) weird… I got messages from 10 NBA GMs that said it came out your mouth … That’s why I don’t f— with Carolina or support anything y’all do.”

“It’s a blessing I don’t open my mouth about s—,” Lawson continued in a second post. “They ask me why I don’t show love to North Carolina … Roy Williams knows why.”

Lawson last played in the NBA for the Wizards in 2018 and currently plays for the Fujian Sturgeons of the CBA in China. If you remember, Lawson was a first round pick (18th overall) by the Timberwolves in 2009 when they also drafted Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn in the first round and nobody had any clue what they were doing. Lawson was immediately traded to the Nuggets where he played six of his eight seasons.


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It’s unclear what Lawson is referring to in particular and it’s also hard to understand why NBA GMs would even be consulting his college coach from over a decade ago on whether or not they should sign Lawson. It’s also hard to believe that Roy Williams would just be cold calling NBA GMs talking shit about Lawson to them. Like does he have a list? “Oh, it’s May 24th. I’ve got some Zoom recruiting visits in the morning and then at 2 o’clock I need to call Sam Presti so I can talk shit about Ty Lawson to him.” It’s just hard to imagine how this would come about. We’re also talking about “10 NBA GMs” here, not one. Very strange.

According to Josh Graham on Twitter,  this also appears to be a recent development:

Lawson has had a history of off-the-court issues including multiple DUIs. In his CBA career, Lawson had averaged 26 points per game over 70 games played for the Shandong Heroes.


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