Basketball player Brittney Griner wearing a Phoenix jersey in a photo from October 13, 2021.
Phoenix (USA) – American basketball player Brittney Griner will return to the WNBA overseas league this season after a ten-month imprisonment in Russia. According to the ESPN server, the thirty-two-year-old center signed a one-year contract with her current club Phoenix Mercury. The competition season will begin in the United States in May.
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Griner spent ten months involuntarily in Russia since her February arrest at the Moscow airport. She was detained due to the discovery of electronic cigarette refills containing hemp oil. In August, a court sentenced her to nine years in prison for drug smuggling, and in November she was moved to a penal colony in Mordvinsk, about 500 kilometers southeast of Moscow. She came home on December 8 after exchanging prisoners for Russian arms dealer Viktor But.
Already then, Griner announced that she wanted to return to basketball. She will continue to work in Phoenix, which made her the number one draft pick in 2013 and where she has spent all nine seasons so far. In 2014, she won the league with the Mercury team, twice she was an eight-time participant in the All-Star Game as the competition's top scorer (2017 and 2019). With the American national team, she won the Olympic tournaments in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, she is also a two-time world champion and a four-time winner of the European League with Yekaterinburg.
Phoenix will start the new season on May 19 with a duel with the Los Angeles Sparks, and she will not miss it nor did star Diana Taurasi. The 40-year-old point guard and the competition's all-time leading scorer signed a multi-year contract with the Mercury and is preparing for her 19th season in the overseas league. The club announced it on its website. The 2004 draft pick has also been loyal to Phoenix his entire career. Taurasi has already said that she wants to aim for a sixth Olympic gold next year at the age of 42.
