“BG is back”: After ten months in prison in Russia, the American basketball player Brittney Griner will be back for the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA in the coming season. “This is a special signing, it’s a special day for all of us,” said club boss Jim Pitman.
Brittney Griner will continue her basketball career after her captivity in Russia and has signed a one-year contract with her former WNBA club Phoenix Mercury. With “BG is back” the franchise confirmed the return of the star player. “This is a special signing, it’s a special day for all of us,” said Mercury CEO Jim Pitman. “We missed BG every day that she wasn’t there.”
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison by a Russian court in early August for drug smuggling and was released in December in a spectacular prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor But. The 32-year-old spent a total of almost ten months in Russian detention after vape cartridges containing cannabis oil were discovered in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February 2022.
Griner let it rip after her return to the USA. She began her first training session after months of ordeal in Russian captivity with a dunk. “She’s doing very, very well. She seems to have pulled through it in an incredible way,” Griner’s agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas told ESPN in mid-December about the 32-year-old, whose fate attracted global attention.
Griner was drafted number one by Phoenix in 2013 and won the championship in 2014. There were also two gold medals at the Olympics (2016, 2020) and two world titles (2014, 2018) with the USA. Griner was also named to the list of the top 25 WNBA players.
