Duke women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson is back in the broadcast booth—and she says it will assist her work as Team USA head coach.
Lawson will be a WNBA game analyst for Amazon Prime Video this season, and tells Front Office Sports that a key reason she chose to call games was to stay close to Team USA players ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
The FIBA Women’s World Cup will be held from September 4–13 in Berlin, Germany. The WNBA has a designated break during the 2026 season from August 31–September 16.
“I wanted to make sure that I was present at WNBA games this summer,” says Lawson, who has 16 years of broadcasting experience at ESPN and as the lead analyst for the NBA’s Wizards.
Lawson said she had already planned to attend WNBA games, and thought she may as well leverage her broadcasting experience and pull double duty. Prime Video will stream 31 games this year, and all 15 WNBA teams will have at least one game featured on the streaming giant.
“I’m not with them for a big chunk of the year, 4–5 months before the competition,” Lawson says. “And I think it’s really important that you’re present, that they see me in person watching them play as we’re trying to evaluate who’s in the best form as Sue [Bird] decides who’s going to be on the team.” (Bird was named as the first women’s national basketball team managing director last May.)
Lawson is not the only member of USA Basketball balancing a broadcasting career.
White is a longtime ESPN broadcaster; USA Basketball men’s national team managing director Grant Hill is now an NBA analyst for NBC and had spent years in broadcasting before taking on his Team USA role; Jeff Van Gundy coached the U.S. men’s team from 2017 to 2019 while serving as ESPN’s lead NBA game analyst.
Lawson’s presence at WNBA games will not only keep her close to players, but also with the rest of her coaching staff. WNBA head coaches Natalie Nakase (Golden State Valkyries), Nate Thibetts (Phoenix Mercury), Stephanie White (Indiana Fever), and Jose Fernandez (Dallas Wings) were all part of Lawson’s staff during the FIBA World Cup qualifiers and training camp earlier this year.
Team USA women’s basketball has won gold at the last four World Cups and last eight Olympics Games. But the gap with international play is shrinking after the U.S. narrowly defeated France at the 2024 Olympics.
“I wouldn’t call the gold medal game massively dominant,” Lawson said. “It was a one-point win. When you look at it, it’s been competitive for us in many competitions and there’s a lot of talented players coming up all around the world and a lot of talented national teams.”
She was an assistant coach under Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve for the gold-medal winning team at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Lawson coached Team USA at the FIBA World Cup qualifiers in San Juan, Puerto Rico in March, a team that featured young stars like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers. Her coaching staff was filled with WNBA head coaches: Natalie Nakase (Golden State Valkyries), Nate Thibetts (Phoenix Mercury), Stephanie White (Indiana Fever), and Jose Fernandez (Dallas Wings).
A few weeks later, Team USA held a training camp in Phoenix with members of past gold-medal winning teams (Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson), as well as several newcomers (Bueckers, Rickea Jackson)
