Kara Lawson Biography
Kara Lawson professional basketball player and a basketball television analyst for ESPN and the Washington Wizards. She is best known as a guard for WNBA teams like the Sacramento Monarchs and Washington Mystics. She won a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Lawson retired from the WNBA in 2015 to focus on her broadcasting career.
Kara Lawson Age
She was born on 14 February 1981, in Alexandria, Virginia USA. She is thirty-eight years of age as of 2019.
Kara Lawson Body Measurement
Kara Lawson has a height of 5 feet 9 inches and weighs 75 kg. Her hair color is black and eye color is dark brown. Her shoe size is 8 US and dress size is unknown.
Kara Lawson Family
Kara possesses an African-American ethnicity. She loves spending time with her mother, sister Susan, niece, and nephew. Unfortunately, her father sadly passed away in August 2017. Despite her father, Bill Lawson’s demise, Kara has happy remembrance of him. She often follows the moral values she was taught by her dad.
Kara Lawson Early Life
Kara attended Sidwell Friends School, and later transferred to West Springfield High School. While in high school, she played for the school’s soccer and basketball teams. She became part of the 1999 WBCA High School All-America Game, earning MVP honors, and was also named as a WBCA All-American.
After matriculating, she attended the University of Tennessee studying finance, and played for the school’s basketball team, the Lady Vols, before graduating in 2003. During her senior year, she won the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award which was given to her by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association
Kara Lawson Husband
Kara has been enjoying her married life of over a decade now. She first met her husband, Damien Barling in Sacramento. They then couple tied the wedding knot in 2008. Kara’s husband works as an afternoon co-host for KHTK 1140.
The couple likes participating in social causes. In 2011, the pair was the frontrunner for an Alzheimer’s awareness and funds collection program. Their initiation came forward after the Tennessee head coach, Pat Summitt was diagnosed with dementia.
The couple now maintaining a cross-country marriage for more than three years. Not because of divorce but due to work. Despite the long distance, they get together at regular intervals and loves celebrating different occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. Although the duo is yet to start a family of their own, the former basketball player is close to her family.
Kara Lawson WNBA career
On April 24, 2003, she was selected as the fifth overall pick by the Detroit Shock in the first round of the 2003 WNBA draft. Unfortunately, five days later, the Shock traded Lawson to the Sacramento Monarchs in exchange of Kedra Holland-Corn and a 2004 second-round draft pick. Two years later, she became a key member of the Monarchs 2005 championship team.
Lawson has been a WNBA All-Star at 2007 and won a WNBA Championship. She even won the Dawn Staley Community Assist Award in 2013 and the Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award in 2009 and 2012. Lawson has won two Gold awards representing America in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2001 World University Games.
In recent years, Lawson has been involved in sports broadcasting during the WNBA off-season, doing commentaries for men’s and women’s college basketball games and Sacramento Kings games.
On March 12, 2014, Lawson was traded to the Washington Mystics for Alex Bentley, who was originally traded to Washington through the Atlanta Dream.
Kara is among the highest WNBA participant whose market value is $10,800,000 also it is going to be raised if she signed up a contract with Washington Mystics or any women Basketball team and gets.
Kara Lawson USA Basketball
Lawson was selected to be a member of the team representing the US World University Games in 2001. The games were held in Beijing, China. After winning the opening game easily, the USA team faced Canada and lost a close game 68–67. She scored 25 points to help the USA team defeat Japan, and earn a place in the quarterfinals.
Her team lost by 12 points against undefeated Russia but came back to win the game by eleven points. The next game they played against the unbeaten host team China. In this match, the USA team won 89–78. The USA team won their next two games to set up the gold medal game; a rematch against the host team.
Though they faced tough competition from China, the USA team prevailed and won the gold medal with a score of 87–67. She was the third leading scorer on the team with 12.0 points per game. Additionally, she led the team in assists and steal with 16 assists and 12 steals over the course of the event.
On July 10, 2008, she was selected to represent the United States with the USA women’s national basketball team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. She helped the United States to capture the gold medal, and led the team in points (15) during the gold medal game against Australia, going a perfect 5-5 from the field and 4-4 from the free throw line.
She was invited to the USA Basketball Women’s National Team training camp in 2009. The team selected was to play for the 2010 FIBA World Championship and the 2012 Olympics. At the conclusion of the training camp, the team will travel to Ekaterinburg, Russia, where they compete in the 2009 UMMC Ekaterinburg International Invitational.
She earned a spot as was one of 21 finalists for the U.S. Women’s Olympic Basketball Team Roster. The 20 professional women’s basketball payers, plus one collegiate player (Brittney Griner), were selected by the USA Basketball Women’s National Team Player Selection Committee to compete for the final roster to represent the US at the 2012 Olympics in London, United Kingdom. However, Lawson did not make the final roster
Kara Lawson Broadcasting
She began her broadcasting career while still playing in the WNBA. Additionally, she served as a studio analyst for the Sacramento Kings. As an analyst, she has worked her way up to working in a variety of NBA and WNBA broadcast roles for ESPN.
On January 12, 2007, she was the first woman to work as a nationwide broadcast analyst for an NBA game. In 2017 she was named the primary television game analyst for the Washington Wizards. She is one of the first primary female TV analysts for an NBA team, joining Sarah Kustok of the Brooklyn Nets
Kara Lawson Net Worth
As of now, Kara is working as an NBA analyst for ESPN and earns an annual salary ranging from $53,720 to $62,859. Currently, she has accumulated a net worth of 1 million dollars.