After a grueling 10 months in a Russian jail and the dramatic prisoner alternate that introduced her house this previous December, WNBA star Brittney Griner will return to the court docket along with her group the Phoenix Mercury, which drafted her first total in 2013 for a tenth season. The web site “Her Hoops Stats” first reported Griner’s signing.
The 6-foot-9 middle final performed for the Mercury in 2021, which was among the best years of her profession as she averaged 20.5 factors, and helped her group attain the WNBA Finals.
Griner’s new one-year contract can pay her $165,100 – far under the purported $1 million she was incomes in Russia the place she performed through the WNBA low season for seven years. That ended a yr in the past, only one week earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine and Griner was detained at a Moscow airport for possessing lower than a gram of hashish oil.
Since her return to the US after being exchanged for Russian arms vendor Viktor Bout, Griner has stored a low profile. The first time she was seen in public was at a Martin Luther King Jr. occasion in Phoenix, the place she lives, then later on the Phoenix Open adopted the subsequent day on the Super Bowl.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist (2016, 2020) didn’t attend the USA Basketball coaching camp earlier this month, although the group made it clear she might take on a regular basis she wanted to resolve if and when she needed to play on Team USA.
Once it grew to become clear that she was getting again onto the basketball court docket sooner quite than later, the WNBA stated it will deal with the problem of offering Griner with particular journey lodging, similar to constitution flights as a safety precaution.
“We are very cognizant of BG’s unique situation,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert advised AP earlier this month. “We’ve been planning and we’ve been thinking it through with security experts, BG’s side, our side. We’ll find the right time to comment on it when she signs with a team.”
Photo by Keeton Gale on Shutterstock
