Recently two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and star player for the Phoenix Mercury, Brittney Griner has decided to sit out for a couple of games to focus on her mental health and emotional well being.
The Phoenix Mercury issued a statement explaining Griner’s absence, according to ESPN. “The Mercury fully support Brittney and we will continue to work together on a timeline for her return,” Griner has been the lone bright spot on an otherwise underwhelming season for the Mercury as she has averaged 18.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game.
The WNBA superstar’s herculean performance on the court pales in comparison to the harrowing ordeal the basketball phenom endured as a political pawn sentenced to a nine year sentence in a Russian prison. After serving more than 10 months as a high profile detainee in deplorable conditions, the star athlete was returned to the U.S. in a movie-like prisoner exchange ending that portion of her personal nightmare.
Even more remarkably, Griner after returning to her life and family in the U.S. wasted no time resuming play with her Mercury teammates as if she had not missed a beat or a pass in play. Her determination to overcome the devastation she suffered was one of the most remarkable displays of sheer will the sports world has witnessed in recent times, but it caused many sports and mental health experts to pause and consider if Griner would be able to fully recover and return to life as she once knew it.
Griner did not take the floor in Sunday’s games against the Chicago Sky, nor will she play in the Mercury’s next game on Tuesday (1 August), when they face the Indiana Fever.
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