Denver Nuggets point guard Ty Lawson is taking a stand. Ranked among the top 10 NBA players at his position for the first quarter of the 2013-14 season, he has Denver in the race to grab a Western Conference playoff berth. Ty Lawson is the Nuggets leader in scoring, assists and steals. Lawson has been the floor general for Denver, guiding an offense that’s ranked just outside the top ten in points per game.
And he’s just signed on with PETA to help keep fur only on the backs of its original owners—animals. In a brand-new PETA ad campaign, Ty Lawson appears gripping a basketball and showing off his amply tattooed arm and torso above the words “I Choose Ink, Not Mink.”
“No matter what the pain is from the tattoo, it’s not going to amount to what the animals are feeling,” Lawson said in an exclusive PETA video interview. “They’re beaten, they’re put in small cages, basically tortured before they’re skinned alive.”
Usually athletes discouraged from political activism. You’ve heard the old cliche “just shut up and play.” Ty Lawson has none of that, the former North Carolina Tar Heels star is using his star power to advance a cause he believes in.
Lawson joins a growing list of top athletes—including Terrell Suggs, Tony Gonzalez, Aaron Curry, Antoine Bethea, Michael Strahan, Metta World Peace, Willis McGahee, and Maurice Jones-Drew—who have teamed up with PETA to fight cruelty to animals.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent analyst on news talk radio; with regular segments on ESPN,NBC, CBS and Fox. A former NBC Chicago and Washington Times writer, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)