Brittney Griner is back.
Back in her country. Back in her home. And back in the WNBA, where the three-time All-WNBA first-teamer and her Phoenix Mercury teammates will take the court Friday, May 19, as part of a WNBA opening night quadruple-header.
It has been barely five months since Griner was released from a Russian penal colony, where she was serving a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty to bringing hashish oil into the country. Griner was arrested last February, a week before Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Joe Biden administration said she had been “wrongfully detained,” and Griner wrote a letter to President Biden saying she was “terrified I might be here forever.” In her first post since she was released in December in a prisoner exchange, she wrote on Instagram that she planned to return to the WNBA.
Now, with the WNBA season about to begin, I’ve been asked to project what Griner’s game and production might look like this year.
To put it mildly, this is a challenging undertaking on many levels. In all honesty, it’s harder than usual for me to…
