After a grueling 10 months in a Russian jail and the dramatic prisoner change that introduced her house this previous December, WNBA star Brittney Griner will return to the court docket together with her workforce 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 probably the greatest years of her profession as she averaged 20.5 factors, and helped her workforce 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 where she played throughout 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 dealer Viktor Bout, Griner has stored a low profile. The primary time she was seen in public was at a Martin Luther King Jr. event in Phoenix, the place she lives, then later on the Phoenix Open adopted the subsequent day on the Super Bowl.
The 2-time Olympic gold medalist (2016, 2020) didn’t attend the USA Basketball coaching camp earlier this month, although the group made it clear she may take on a regular basis she wanted to resolve if and when she needed to play on Group USA.
As soon as it grew to become clear that she was getting again onto the basketball court docket sooner reasonably than later, the WNBA mentioned it might handle the problem of offering Griner with particular journey lodging, corresponding to constitution flights as a safety precaution.
“We’re very cognizant of BG’s distinctive scenario,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert informed AP earlier this month. “We have been planning and we have been considering it by with safety consultants, BG’s aspect, our aspect. We’ll discover the fitting time to touch upon it when she indicators with a workforce.”
Photograph by Keeton Gale on Shutterstock
