PHOENIX — During the 2022 Phoenix Mercury season, coach Vanessa Nygaard often spoke about a heaviness that engulfed her team. Even during their best moments, the reminders of Brittney Griner’s detention loomed over the Mercury.
On Thursday, at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, the lightness of Griner’s presence could not have provided a starker contrast.
It started even before Griner showed her face, when Mercury president Vince Kozar introduced her wife Cherelle, and the 6-foot-7 All-Star stretched her long arms from behind the team backdrop to clap for her wife in what ended up looking more like a gator chomp than applause.
When she took the podium for the first time and the mic wasn’t working despite multiple sound checks, Kozar came to give her a replacement. Griner feigned ignorance about how to navigate the new set-up, saying, “I play basketball, I don’t do this.”
Having Griner return home from her detainment in Russia felt like a miracle. But seeing this version of Griner, the personable jokester who can find humor in any moment, has been an unexpected blessing. She has always brought light to those around her, and even more so now, when one would expect her experiences to have dimmed her radiance.
In her first press conference upon her return to the court,…
