After a tenuous 55-52 win over Italy on Sunday, the Team USA women's basketball team is out to a 2-0 start at the FIBA Women's World Cup in Berlin, Germany.

The Americans have one more Group Stage game, on Monday against the Czech Republic, before heading to the elimination round. Team USA has won every Olympic gold medal since 1996 and remains dominant in all forms of international competition.

With Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark, Breanna Stewart and Angel Reese, this American team is filled with star power, but they are also led by a star in her own right: Former Boston Celtics assistant coach Kara Lawson.

Lawson was with the Celtics for one season (2019-20) before leaving to become the head coach at Duke. With the Blue Devils, she's spent six seasons, and she helped them get to the Elite Eight this past season. This is her first time coaching Team USA.

Lawson was the first female coach in Celtics history.

It was certainly a tumultuous year because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Celtics went 48-24, playing only 72 games in total, with 64 of those coming before the pandemic and eight of them coming inside the "NBA Bubble."

Boston finished the season at third in the Eastern Conference, winning a first round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers and a semifinal round against the Toronto Raptors. They lost in six games to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.

However, Lawson wasn't around for the playoff run.

Teams reported for the NBA Bubble in Orlando, Fla. on July 7, 2020. Lawson was announced as the head coach at Duke on July 11, meaning she left shortly after arriving.

There was certainly some chatter that she could have been. Remember, back in June of 2021, then-executive Danny Ainge announced he was stepping down. At the same time, Brad Stevens announced he was leaving as team's head coach and moving into Ainge's role.

That all occurred on June 2. Eventually Ime Udoka was hired as the team's next head coach on June 28. That means that there was roughly a 3.5-week period where the Celtics were looking for a head coach. Lawson's name was certainly mentioned around that time.

When Udoka was suspended for a year in September of 2022, Joe Mazzulla was almost instantly given the interim head coaching job, meaning there was really no time for a Lawson discussion then.