The two-time Olympic gold medalist received another loud ovation when she was announced as a member of the starting lineup, then hugged the Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike, the team’s leading player, before they jumped against each other in the opening tip-off. “The love from the fans when I came out was amazing,” Griner said. Griner, visibly moved, clapped and put her right hand over her heart when the arena cameras focused on her.

A brief tribute video featuring clips of Griner’s performances interspersed with comments from members of the Sparks played. That joy expressed itself early, when the Mercury took the floor for pre-game warmups – and received a standing ovation. US vice-president Kamala Harris visited the Phoenix Mercury locker room while in Los Angeles for Friday’s game. We did our jobs probably with less joy than professional athletes typically do. “The emotion that we went through last year as a group was hard to process. “Till the day we got the news that she was on her way home, no one thought that it was going to happen,” Nygaard said. On 8 December, Russia exchanged Griner for Viktor Bout, an arms dealer. While the United States and Russia negotiated her release, Griner was held at a women’s prison 310 miles southeast of Moscow. By contrast, the standard sentence in Russia for possessing less than two grams of cannabis oil is 15 days. On 4 August, the court sentenced Griner to nine years in prison and fined her 1m rubles, or $16,301.

During her trial, Griner pled guilty to possession on 7 July but said she had no intention to break any laws. On 2 May, the US state department declared Griner to be “wrongly detained”. But medical marijuana is illegal in Russia. Griner, who played with UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA’s off-season, received a prescription from her doctor in Arizona to use medical marijuana to treat pain. On that date, one day shy of Griner’s 31st birthday, the Chicago Sky defeated the Mercury to win the WNBA finals in four games.Įxactly four months later, Russian police arrested Griner in Moscow after customs officials found cannabis oil in her vaping cartridges. Though she’d played in an exhibition loss to the Sparks in Phoenix on 12 May, Griner’s appearance in the season opener marked her first meaningful game since 17 October 2021.

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