PHOENIX — Those around her see all the progress each day. The things Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner has done her entire basketball career keep coming back. To the point, she hopes, that as the 2023 WNBA season goes on, it will seem as if she was never gone.
But she was gone, of course. For a heart-wrenching 10 months last year, Griner was imprisoned in Russia, uncertain when she would be able to go home or if she would ever play in the WNBA again. Griner returned to the United States in December and soon said she would return to the WNBA in 2023. From that moment, there was a countdown to seeing her back on the court, especially here in Phoenix, where she has been beloved since being selected No. 1 in the WNBA draft in 2013.
Now, after a weekend in which she received a warm welcome from opposing fans and a visit with Vice President Kamala Harris in the season opener in Los Angeles on Friday, followed by a tears-of-joy embrace by the 14,040 Mercury faithful who filled Footprint Center on Sunday for Phoenix’s home opener, Griner and her teammates…
