WNBA star Brittney Griner’s 10-month imprisonment in Russia on drug costs got here to an finish on Thursday, spreading aid and pleasure throughout the sports activities world and past.
It’s unknown if and when she would possibly return to a basketball courtroom. But if she does, girls’s basketball will get again a generational expertise.
On the courtroom, Griner was a dominant power in main Baylor to the 2012 NCAA championship, then went onto stardom as a lanky anchor for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and as a two-time Olympic gold medalist with Team USA.
The 6-foot-9 heart is understood for her means to dunk, as soon as a rarity within the girls’s recreation. Griner holds the NCAA report with 18 dunks and has 13 since becoming a member of the WNBA in 2014. She has 5 extra in WNBA All-Star Games.
But Griner’s affect on the sport goes far past her means to throw the ball down from over the rim.
Defensively, she’s arguably one of the best girls’s participant ever.
Griner blocked extra pictures than eight groups as a WNBA rookie and has saved swatting pictures all through her nine-year professional profession. She holds WNBA information for many blocks in a season (129) and a recreation (11).
Griner’s means to dam pictures and her agility on the courtroom helped her win the WNBA defensive participant of the yr in consecutive seasons (2014-15) and earned her a spot on the WNBA’s all-defensive crew six occasions — three every on first and second groups.
Griner has been as a lot of a power on the offensive finish. She grew to become the primary true heart to steer the WNBA in scoring in 2017 and did it once more in 2019, averaging greater than 20 factors every season.
Griner has averaged 17.7 factors whereas capturing 56% from the ground and averages 7.6 rebounds per recreation in her profession.
The mixture of expertise has earned Griner six WNBA All-Star Game appearances. She didn’t play in 2017 as a result of harm, and the video games in 2016 and 2020 weren’t performed.
Griner was a key a part of the Mercury crew that received the 2014 WNBA championship, received a gold medal with the US crew on the 2016 Rio Olympics and has been part of two world championship gold medal groups.
A testomony to Griner’s affect: the Mercury went 15-21 whereas she was detained throughout the 2022 season after reaching the WNBA finals the yr earlier than.
Now Griner is lastly headed house. The 2023 WNBA season begins in May, when she’s going to possible return to dominating the sport.
