Lawson shines in debut year in WNBA

(WTNH) -- Kara Lawson is enjoying the most productive year in her WNBA career. It's no coincidence, healthy and rededicated Lawson is putting up big numbers and its equaled wins for the CT Sun.

She's making the most of an opportunity she's never had before.

For 9 years she waited.

"Nine years, that's a long wait, wasn't sure a chance would ever come," Lawson said. "I knew if I ever got one I had to hit it out of the park when I got it."

Lawson has crushed the opportunity. She's having a career year. Her first as a WNBA starter.

"People saw me as a 6th man, player off the bench, a sparkplug," said Lawson, "but that's how I had been branded because that's the role I have played for teams"

Injuries are another reason Lawson was never a full-time starter.

This year, she's started all 34 games for Mike Thibault, who thinks she's performing like 1st teamer.

"Last year we debated some things about what she could and couldn't do, and it put a little chip on her shoulder about it," Thibault said.

"I felt personally I had underachieved the first couple years here, and it doesn't matter what the reasons are," Lawson said.

"Sometimes you need to be challenged a little to say 'okay I can get the most out of me, what am I going to do to be my best' and she figured it out," Thibault said.

First and foremost, Lawson is healty. No nagging knee or shoulder injury. With the help of her husband Damien she also changed her diet and went to work in the off-season.

"I don't want to say I fell back in love with the game, I always loved it," Lawson said. "It was nice to get in there and work and train and be fatigued, just burn yourself out."

"She went into camp and she said you're going to look foolish if you don't give me the starting job and she went in there and took it," Damien said.

"This was a big year for me, I felt the most important year of my career," Lawson said. "I feel like I have a lot of basketball left in me, a lot!"

Lawson and the Sun open the first round of the WNBA Playoffs Thursday night.

Before the game the league has scheduled a special announcement. Tina Charles is expected to be named the leagues MVP.