After a grueling 10 months in a Russian jail and the dramatic prisoner trade that introduced her residence this previous December, WNBA star Brittney Griner will return to the courtroom together with her workforce the Phoenix Mercury, which drafted her first general in 2013 for a tenth season. The web site “Her Hoops Stats” first reported Griner’s signing.

The 6-foot-9 heart final performed for the Mercury in 2021, which was the most effective years of her profession as she averaged 20.5 factors, and helped her workforce attain the WNBA Finals. 

Griner’s new one-year contract pays her $165,100 – far beneath the purported $1 million she was incomes in Russia the place she performed throughout the WNBA low season for seven years. That ended a 12 months in the past, only one week earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine and Griner was detained at a Moscow airport for possessing lower than a gram of hashish oil.

Since her return to the US after being exchanged for Russian arms vendor Viktor Bout, Griner has saved a low profile. The primary time she was seen in public was at a Martin Luther King Jr. occasion in Phoenix, the place she lives, then later on the Phoenix Open adopted the subsequent day on the Tremendous Bowl.

The 2-time Olympic gold medalist (2016, 2020) didn’t attend the USA Basketball coaching camp earlier this month, although the group made it clear she might take on a regular basis she wanted to determine if and when she needed to play on Crew USA.

As soon as it turned clear that she was getting again onto the basketball courtroom sooner fairly than later, the WNBA mentioned it might tackle the difficulty of offering Griner with particular journey lodging, equivalent to constitution flights as a safety precaution.

“We’re very cognizant of BG’s distinctive state of affairs,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert informed AP earlier this month. “We have been planning and we have been considering it via with safety specialists, BG’s aspect, our aspect. We’ll discover the proper time to touch upon it when she indicators with a workforce.”

Picture by Keeton Gale on Shutterstock