Players and staff of the New York Liberty WNBA basketball team wait to board buses at Harry Reid International Airport, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Las Vegas. John Locher/AP hide caption
Brittney Griner Brittney Griner
Stories About
Brittney Griner
Brittney Griner warms up before a game against the New York Liberty at Barclays Center on July 05, 2023. Dustin Satloff/Getty Images hide caption
Brittney Griner shares her experience behind bars in Russia
Brittney Griner on the court in September 2023. Ethan Miller/Getty Images hide caption
'I did not feel like a human': Brittney Griner tells NPR about detention in Russia
Brittney Griner, Sheryl Swoopes, Kierstan Bell and Layshia Clarendon. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images, Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images, Ethan Miller/Getty Images hide caption
The WNBA's coming out story; plus, the dangers of sports betting
During a press conference in Phoenix on Thursday, Brittney Griner told reporters she wasn't planning to play overseas again unless she was invited to the Olympics. Christian Petersen/Getty Images hide caption
Brittney Griner appears on stage at the 54th NAACP Image Awards in Pasadena, Calif., on Feb. 25. Griner is working on a memoir that is scheduled for spring 2024. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP hide caption
WNBA superstar Brittney Griner arrives to a hearing at the Khimki Court, outside Moscow on July 27, 2022. Griner was released in December 2022 after spending nearly 10 months in a Russian prison. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Cherelle Griner, on the left, and Brittney Griner, on the right, speak onstage during the 54th NAACP Image Awards in Pasadena, Calif., on Saturday. Amy Sussman/Getty Images hide caption
Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, left, high-fives teammate Brittney Griner during a 2014 WNBA basketball game in Phoenix. Griner plans to return to the Mercury on a one-year contract. Matt York/AP hide caption
Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner plays in a September 2021 game. In her first public comments since being freed from Russia, she says she will play in the next WNBA season. Michael Conroy/AP hide caption
An apartment burns after Russian shelling in Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, on Wednesday. Libkos/AP hide caption
American basketball star Brittney Griner gets out of a plane after landing in San Antonio on Friday. Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Paul Whelan holds a sign in protest as he awaits his verdict in Moscow in June 2020. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of espionage. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Liudmyla, left, embraces her granddaughter, Ania, who arrived Saturday on the first Ukrainian Railways train to reach liberated Kherson, Ukraine. The train from Kyiv arrived to jubilation and tears. Carol Guzy for NPR hide caption
U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony in August for drug smuggling, is seen on a screen via a video link from a remand prison during a court hearing to consider an appeal against her sentence, at the Moscow regional court on Oct. 25. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Imprisoned women wait to be escorted for work at a women's penal colony outside Orel, Russia on Nov. 30, 2011. Yuri Tutov/AP hide caption
WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, sits inside a defendants' cage after the court's verdict during a hearing in Khimki outside Moscow, on Aug. 4, 2022. Evgenia Novozhenina/POOL/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Women's National Basketball Association player Brittney Griner leaves the courtroom after the verdict in Khimki, outside Moscow, on Aug. 4. A Russian court found Griner guilty of smuggling and storing narcotics. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner stands listening to a verdict in a courtroom in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, on Aug. 4. Griner apologized to her family and teams as a Russian court heard closing arguments in her drug possession trial. Evgenia Novozhenina/AP hide caption
A priest prays for unidentified civilians killed by Russian troops in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Aug. 11. Eleven unidentified bodies exhumed from a mass grave were buried in Bucha that day. Efrem Lukatsky/AP hide caption
WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is escorted from a court room ater a hearing, in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP hide caption
American pilot Francis Gary Powers (far right) during his 1960 trial in Moscow. Powers was shot down while flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union. He was jailed for nearly two years before he was freed in a swap for a Soviet spy imprisoned in the U.S. AP hide caption
From the Cold War to Evan Gershkovich: a new twist in U.S.-Russia prisoner swaps
The cargo ship Razoni crosses the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, on Aug. 3. The first cargo ship to leave Ukraine since the Russian invasion was anchored at an inspection area in the Black Sea off the coast of Istanbul Wednesday morning before moving on to Lebanon. Khalil Hamra/AP hide caption
Brittney Griner holds a picture of her Russian basketball team as she stands inside a defendants' cage before a court hearing in Khimki, outside Moscow, on Thursday. Evgenia Novozhenina/AFP via Getty Images hide caption