WNBA commissioner describes Brittney Griner situation as ‘unimaginable’ as league works to secure her release

The 31-year-old WNBA star was detained by Russian authorities on 17 February

Speaking ahead of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) draft, commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters that the league is working diligently with ”everybody in our ecosystem” to ensure that Brittney Griner is returned home from Russia, where she has been held in custody for nearly eight weeks.

The Phoenix Mercury centre was arrested and detained on 17 February by the Russian Federal Customs service after the authorities allegedly found cannabis oil cartridges stored in her luggage at Sheremetyevo Airport.

The commissioner acknowledged in her speech before the evening’s draft that “BG’s” situation is “unimaginable”.

“I did want to start by saying we continue to be working diligently on bringing Brittney Griner home,” Ms Engelbert said.

The 31-year-old basketball player was inside the eastern European country back in mid-February to play with UMMC Ekaterinburg, a Russian Premier League team she has represented since 2014 and competes with during the WNBA off-season.

“She continues to have our full support, and she’s just been such a great person in the league. I can’t be any more real about the situation that she’s in," Ms Englebert said. “Certainly, we’re trying everything we can, every angle, working through with her legal representation, her agent, elected leaders, the administration; just everybody in our ecosystem to try and find ways to get her home safely and as quickly as we can.”

The Texas basketball player, who years earlier was selected by the Phoenix Mercury as the first overall pick of the 2013 WNBA draft, could be facing up to 10 years in prison if convicted by Russian authorities of drug charges.

Ms Engelbert thanked the league and Ms Griner’s teammates for following the advice she and managers had laid out for them, praising them for their “patience” in the process.

“I know the players have been amazing at following the advice that they’re getting and we’re getting in order not to jeopardise her safety in any way. We continue to follow that advice and continue to work on it," she said.

The advice that has been provided to Ms Griner’s peers in the league was discussed on the podcast I Am Athlete, in which former WNBA star Lisa Leslie told hosts that within the “women’s basketball world”, without naming who gave the direction, “we were told to not make a big fuss about it so they could not use her as a pawn, so to speak, in this situation in the war”.

“That’s what we were told, but it’s been spreading throughout the women’s basketball world,” Ms Leslie said.

For her part, the commissioner told reporters in the audience that the league is endeavouring to do everything they can, with Ms Engelbert relying on a personal anecdote to underscore her commitment to the WNBA superstar.

“I used to tell my daughter when she was little … ‘I would go to the end of the earth to help you if you’re ever in trouble,’ and I say the same thing about Brittney Griner.”

In addition to the commissioner vocalising her support for the player ahead of the league’s 6 May tip off, she also revealed a philanthropic initiative in Ms Griner’s name that will kick off ahead of the 2022 season.

“BG, for those that don’t know, founded an organisation in 2016 called BG’s Heart and Soul Shoe Drive. The activations that we will do, the Mercury will lead, are intended to remind us of BG’s spirit of giving and do the work she’d be doing if she were here and certainly the work she will join us in when she returns,” the commissioner said, referring to Ms Griner by her league nickname of “BG”.

Some of Ms Griner’s USA Basketball teammates spoke out late last month, breaking away from what most WNBA players perhaps deemed too risky and thought, as Ms Leslie described in her interview, could potentially harm the Olympic gold medalist’s case.

“People are saying she’s 6-foot-9, she’s different. It’s really not about that,” teammate Angel McCoughtry told the Associated Press in an interview. “It could have been any of us.”

“The big thing is the fact that we have to go over there. It was BG, but it could have been anybody,” said her other teammate, Breanna Stewart, who was highlighting how commonplace it is for WNBA players to complement their WNBA salaries by competing in foreign leagues, such as the Russian one Ms Griner has competed in for the last few years.

“WNBA players need to be valued in their country and they won’t have to play overseas.”

Though most NBA players will spend their off-season resting and recuperating with family and friends, their WNBA counterparts typically will use that time topping off their salaries playing across the pond in leagues based in Turkey, China and Russia.

An NBA maximum salary can exceed $40m (£30.7m), while the WNBA’s max salary tops out at just $221,450 (£169,811), with just seven players in the league laying claim to that paycheque.

On average, a WNBA player will earn $120,648 (£92,514) for a 32-game regular season.