'I Will Never Forget Any of It': Brittney Griner Is Ready to Talk

Original source (on modern site) | Article images: [1] [2]

Magazine|'I Will Never Forget Any of It': Brittney Griner Is Ready to Talk

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/magazine/brittney-griner-book-russia-interview.html

• U.S.
• World
• Business
• Arts
• Lifestyle
• Opinion
• Audio
• Games
• Cooking
• Wirecutter
• The Athletic

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

On the March afternoon when I met Brittney Griner in Phoenix, the wildflowers were in peak efflorescence, California poppies and violet cones of lupine exploding everywhere. Griner was in bloom too. She was practicing with some local ballers brought in by her W.N.B.A. team, the Mercury, to prepare its players for the start of the season in May. On the court, Griner was loose, confident, trading jokes with the other players between runs. She snatched a pass out of the air, drove it hard in the paint and pulled up to shoot, the ball kissing the net as it sailed through. Everyone, including Nate Tibbetts, the Mercury's newly hired head coach, who dropped by to watch, erupted in cheers. Griner nodded to herself in quiet satisfaction, keeping her head down as she jogged back to run the play again.

Listen to this article, read by January LaVoy

Less than two years ago, Griner was starting her nine-year sentence in a penal colony in Russia, sewing uniforms for the Russian military and subsisting on spoiled food. She lived for glimpses of the sky, which she could see only through weathered rebar when the guards took prisoners outside. She had never been further from the sport that made her a household name. She could barely get through multiple rounds of horse, her lung capacity shot from smoking so many cigarettes. She rarely got to hear from her wife, Cherelle, or her family and friends, and she had no idea when — or if — she would be coming home.

When, after 10 months in Russia, she was finally released, she jumped back into playing, thinking the routine and familiarity would ground her back in herself and her life. But the transition was rocky. All last season, she was plagued by injuries and insecurities. The confidence of being one of the W.N.B.A.'s most powerful "bigs" had evaporated. It got so bad that she took a midseason leave. "I don't feel like I really got my body back until right now," she told me in Phoenix. "When I look back at the videos, it's cringe. The season, any pictures from last year — I don't want to see it or look at it." She had a lot of self-doubt and didn't think she could do it. "Maybe I should stop. Maybe I'll never be the same player that I was before. Maybe this was the big rift in my career, where it's like, I'm never going to get to that top."

The next day, Griner loped into a conference room above the court, wearing team-branded workout clothes and an elegant chain, dimples prominent in her wide grin. Her teeth were perfect — her first big purchase after going pro. She was gracious and kind, offering to retrieve drinks from the team fridge, making sure everyone around her was comfortable, taking her seat last. "I actually feel like my old self," she told me. "I'm moving like my old self. But still, in the back of my head, there's a nagging 'What if?' You know, what if it doesn't go the way you want it to?"

Image