Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns donned custom sneakers during Friday's University of Kentucky alumni game.
As seen in this tweet courtesy of The Players' Tribune, the shoes displayed Towns' stance against racism:
Towns explained his footwear choice to Fletcher Page of the Courier-Journal:
"I think everyone thinks we're athletes so our intellectual capacity is not enough to understand topics [or] we're not capable to fully explain feelings, what you feel about the topics. But that's not true. A lot of us athletes, a lot of us are well educated. A lot of us have a spot in our heart that we feel like we try to get knowledge from people, tell people how we feel. There's nothing wrong or soft about letting people know how you feel."
Earlier Friday, The Players' Tribune released an article written by Towns in which he gave his thoughts on racism and the current state of America.
Towns specifically wrote about the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the fact they didn't surprise him in his Players Tribune article.
Towns also discussed his disappointment in how President Donald Trump handled the situation.
At the same time, Towns expressed hope that enough people are willing to make a difference in order to change the country's social climate:
"There are more Americans who want to understand other people—people who look past pigmentation ... people who talk with love that can shiver a person's mind and soul ... and people who live to improve not only their families' lives, but the lives of every family in this beautiful country. There are more of those people than there are people who want to divide, degrade and corrupt us."
Towns was also reflective about returning to Lexington, Kentucky, for the alumni game, saying the sense of community in the city gave him help as well.
The 21-year-old turned in a predictably dominant performance in the alumni game, scoring a game-high 33 points.
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