Brittney Griner’s Impact Is Clear as W.N.B.A. Fans Await Word From Russia
When Brittney Griner is on the basketball court, everyone knows. At 6-foot-9, she towers over most other players. She snatches rebounds over her opponents’ outstretched arms, and her teammates know the surest way to score: Deliver the ball to her.
Since the Phoenix Mercury drafted Griner No. 1 overall in 2013, she has become one of the most dominant players ever: a seven-time All-Star, a W.N.B.A.
champion and a two-time Olympian with matching gold medals. But now Griner, 31, has become entangled in a geopolitical quandary.
Instead of preparing for the W.N.B.A. season that’s less than two months away, she is believed to be detained in Russia on what customs officials described as drug charges, with little word on her case or her well-being during the war in Ukraine. “With all the problems with Russia and them attacking Ukraine, has Brittney become a political bargaining chip?” said Debbie Jackson, Griner’s high school basketball coach. “Is this part of politics?
