Here’s one good news which would have seemed unimaginable just three months ago. Women’s basketball superstar Brittney Griner, who returned to the United States on December 8 after ten months of imprisonment in Russia, according to several American media signed a one-year contract with the Phoenix Mercury on Saturday. This is the franchise where she played from 2013 to 2021. Brittney Griner thus keeps the promise she made, when she returned from detention, to play again in the WNBA championship this season.
The 32-year-old player was arrested in February 2022 on drug trafficking charges when she was hired by the Russian team Ekaterinburg (Euroleague) during the American offseason. Sentenced to nine years in prison and then transferred to a penal colony in central Russia, she was released after long negotiations, led by President Joe Biden, in exchange for Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, nicknamed the “merchant of death”.
A very committed double Olympic champion
Brittney Griner would have signed, according to ESPN, a one-year contract and 165,100 dollars with Mercury, which she led to the WNBA finals in 2021, lost to Chicago Sky. The team will begin the next season on May 19 against the Los Angeles Sparks. Culminating at 2.06 m, this solid interior has established itself as one of the best basketball players in the world since her professional debut. The two-time Olympic champion (2016 and 2021) had one of the best seasons of her career in 2021, averaging 20.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and 2.7 assists per game.
Figure of the LGBT + community, the native of Houston (Texas) is also committed to civil rights and is among the first basketball players to have asked the WNBA to no longer play the national anthem before games. And this in the wake of the historic demonstrations against the police violence suffered by African-Americans, after the death of George Floyd and that of Breonna Taylor. His official return to the courts next spring should be quite an event across the Atlantic.