Lawson only spent one year as a Celtics assistant, but she could have gotten the head coaching job looking back.
Earlier this September, Duke Blue Devils women's basketball coach Kara Lawson led the Team USA women's basketball team to the gold medal at the 2026 FIBA World Cup.
For the Americans, it was the continuation of their international dominance: They haven't lost a World Cup contest since 2006 and they've won every Olympic gold medal since 1996.
For Lawson, it was her first cycle as the national team head coach. We covered her run extensively because she was a Boston Celtics assistant coach not that long ago: For one season in 2019-20.
Even though Lawson's time in Boston was short, her impact was profound. She developed a great relationship with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and helped navigate the Celtics through the challenges of the COVID-impacted season.
Lawson entered the NBA Bubble with the Celtics when the season resumed in July, but she left after just a few days to become the head coach of the Duke women's program. The Celtics ended up losing the Eastern Conference Finals to the Miami Heat in that season.
I distinctly remember thinking in 2021 that Lawson was going to get serious consideration for the Celtics' head coaching job when it opened up, and I know I'm not the only one.
So, let's hit the wayback machine.
The 2021 conversation
The reason why we're bringing up all this now is pretty simple.
Wednesday was the four year anniversary of the Celtics naming Joe Mazzulla as the team's interim head coach for the 2022-23 season. Mazzulla eventually got the full-time later on in 2023 and then helped the Celtics win the championship in 2023-24.
Why did Mazzulla get the job in Boston in the first place? Because Ime Udoka was suspended for a violation of workplace rules in September of 2022. Udoka had been hired in the summer of 2021 and led the Celtics to the NBA Finals in 2021-22, where they were beaten by the Golden State Warriors.
So that's where we go back to: Udoka got the job in 2021 when Brad Stevens resigned to join the Celtics front office.
At that point, I thought there was a real chance that Boston brought back Lawson for the head job in Stevens's absence.
And Celtics television analyst Brian Scalabrine said he thought Lawson was going to get the job too, praising her basketball acumen, work ethic and her ability to help players develop.
Why didn't Lawson get the job?
It's ultimately too long ago to remember everything about the job search, but this much is true: It would have been hard for Lawson to leave Duke after just one season in order to take the Celtics job, especially when the only season she coached there (2020-21) was so heavily impacted by the pandemic and the after affects of it.
Duke is one of the best collegiate jobs in the country and she's certainly making her impact there. The Blue Devils got to the Elite Eight in 2025-26.
