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Good news for Duke fans as the Boston Celtics will not be hiring Kara Lawson. We admit we were a bit spooked when former Celtic Brian Scalabrine flat-out said Boston would be hiring Lawson.
And we can see the logic.
In her brief time in Durham she’s made a huge impression. No one paying attention doubts her basketball acumen or charisma. She’s doing what she was born to do and someday she may do it at the highest possible level.
But as impressive as she is, she’s only coached one season as an assistant and one sort-of year at Duke where most of the season was called off due to the pandemic.
That may have had something to do with Brad Stevens seeking out a more experienced assistant as he now plans to hire Nets assistant Ime Udoka. He’s a Gregg Popovich protege, having coached in San Antonio from 2012-19.
What he’s not is Boston’s first Black head coach, as former Duke star Jason Williams claimed on ESPN. Boston’s first Black coach was, we’re pretty sure, the first Black head coach in any professional sport, and that was Bill Russell in 1968-69 when he was a player-coach. Allegedly, Tom Heinsohn told Red Auerbach that Russell wouldn’t play for anyone else so he might as well be the coach.
And he won titles in both of his seasons.
Since then, Boston has hired KC Jones, Tom Sanders, ML Carr and Doc Rivers. We haven’t seen what JWill has said since he said that, but presumably he’s corrected it. We can empathize, having said our share of stupid things over the years.
Back to Lawson: she worked the portal brilliantly this spring and has completely upgraded Duke’s roster. Next season is going to be a lot of fun talent-wise and we’re also looking forward to seeing how she develops as a coach because like a lot of people, we think she’s going to be great.
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