Duke basketball reportedly hiring Kara Lawson as women’s head coach

The Duke basketball program is reportedly close to hiring Boston Celtics assistant Kara Lawson as the next women’s basketball head coach.

After the Duke women’s basketball program was hit with a stunner last week as head coach Joanne P. McCallie announced she was stepping down from the program, Athletic Director Kevin White might have found the perfect replacement.

According to multiple reports, Kara Lawson is the clear frontrunner and is expected to be named as the next head coach of the women’s basketball program.

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Lawson has a rich background not just in the sport of women’s basketball, but also in basketball in general as the 39-year old is currently an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics.

At the present moment, Lawson is in Orlando, Florida as Boston trains for the restart of the NBA season.

Prior to her tenure with the Celtics, Lawson was a star at the University of Tennessee for legendary head coach Pat Summit from 1999-2003 and was then the No. 5 overall pick in the 2003 WNBA Draft by the Detroit Shock.

Lawson was then traded to the Sacramento Monarchs and won the 2005 WNBA Championship with the team and was named an All-Star in 2007 while also playing for the Connecticut Sun and Washington Mystics in her professional career.

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Kara Lawson then began a new career as a basketball analyst on television, most prominently covering the NBA and WNBA for ESPN, but she also worked for the Sacramento Kings and Washington Wizards broadcast teams before joining Brad Stevens’ staff in Boston.

McCallie had been at Duke since 2007, but after White did not extend her contract entering its final season, the former Blue Devil head coach decided to step down.

Duke was set to make its return to the NCAA Tournament this season after missing the postseason for just the second time under McCallie in the 2018-19 season.

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Joanne P. McCallie ended her tenure at Duke with a 330-107 record and is just 60 victories shy of 1,000 career wins.

If both sides are able to cross the finish line, Kara Lawson seems like the perfect person to lift the Duke women’s basketball program to new heights and make the team a perennial powerhouse.