Brittney Griner’s arrest and detention earlier this year have made WNBA players decide to take their talents elsewhere when playing professional basketball overseas.
WNBA stars have gone over to Russia to play for teams for years for higher salaries. However, the Griner situation will keep players away from the country as the WNBA heads for its own offseason.
Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, and Courtney Vandersloot are just three players who plan to play elsewhere.
“Honestly my time in Russia has been wonderful, but especially with BG still wrongfully detained there, nobody’s going to go there until she’s home,” Stewart said, via CNBC. “I think that, you know, now, people want to go overseas and if the money is not much different, they want to be in a better place.”
Stewart will go to Turkey to play for Fenerbahçe while Vandersloot will play in Hungary.
“I am Hungarian. I thought it would be special since I haven’t played there since I got the citizenship,” she said, adding there would have to be a lot of changes before she considered playing in Russia again.
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“The thing about it is, we were treated so well by our club and made such strong relationships with those people, I would never close the door on that,” she said. “The whole situation with BG makes it really hard to think that it’s safe for anyone to go back there right now.”
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison for bringing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil through a Moscow airport. The Biden administration is currently try to free her and Paul Whelan, another detained American.
