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Kara Lawson makes Twitter swoon with her ESPN NBA Christmas game color commentary

The Mystics guard has been making a name for herself on nationally televised games for a decade. Now, the NBA world is taking notice.

During the Washington Mystics' offseason, most players go overseas to play. But veteran guard Kara Lawson remains stateside to focus on her blossoming broadcasting career.

Since 2004, she has been a basketball color analyst on ESPN. Most of the time, you can hear her providing analysis for women's and men's college basketball games. In addition, she has also done color commentary on ESPN Radio for NBA games

On Christmas Day 2015, Lawson was alongside ESPN play by play announcer Mark Jones to serve as color analyst for the Heat vs. Pelicans game. Miami pulled out a 94-88 overtime victory.

Here's just one snippet of her commentary and I'll admit it that won't do her justice:

There were plenty of tweets who praised Lawson for calling the game as she saw it, without bias. As a one-time WNBA Champion, All-Star, and Olympic Gold Medalist she definitely knows her basketball. Below is just a sample of the many tweets before and throughout the game:

Even though we're now in an era of the NBA where we are seeing more women take notable roles on the court and broadcasting like:

  • Michele Roberts becoming the first female to be the leader of the National Basketball Players Association in 2014
  • Lauren Holtkamp being the first full-time female NBA referee since Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner in 2014
  • Becky Hammon becoming the first female full-time NBA assistant coach when she joined the Spurs in 2014 after a storied WNBA playing career
  • Nancy Lieberman becoming the second female full-time NBA assistant coach when she joined the Kings in 2015
  • Stephanie Ready becoming the first female full-time game analyst for an NBA team's regional affiliate in 2015 (she's with the Charlotte Hornets)

we still see stuff like Gilbert Arenas' recent Instagram posts or tweets like this on Lawson (I didn't bother embedding it so a picture will do):

That tweet was unfortunate, but it's a good thing to see that the vast majority of people genuinely enjoyed Lawson's commentary. I fully expect to see her commentate in more nationally televised NBA games before too long.