The Phoenix Mercury Center fought a major battle off-court after being detained in Russia since February 17. The Russian court sentenced BG to nine years in prison in July but Brittney Griner found a way to deal with her wrongful detention and returned home by December 2022! The 2014 WNBA champion’s first move on a Texas basketball court was a dunk. The Dunk has always been Griner’s statement move as witnessed by Lindsay Kagawa Colas (Griner’s agent who spoke to CNN). This is the exact opposite of when she remains off-court and detained in Russia while the Joe Biden administration did everything it could to bring Griner home. Joe Biden’s admin was able to fight for her freedom by doing a prisoner swap for notorious convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout during Russia’s war in Ukraine. Does this make Brittney Griner’s net worth and value more despite all the psychological trauma she must have endured? Let’s find out!
Brittney Griner’s Net Worth (2023) After Coming Back To The US
Brittney Griner’s journey to becoming who she is hasn’t been easy. She faced difficult challenges and traumatic situations for most of her life. Growing up, Brittney Griner struggled to understand why she was different and wished she was just a normal girl. However, her doubts and pressure from society did not prevent her from finding herself. Fortunately, the WNBA is one dream she found, which has paid her well.
Brittney Griner’s net worth:
The 8-time WNBA All-Star spent most of her offseason playing in overseas basketball leagues and is worth around $2-3 million. Brittney is able to collect this fortune from her successful career as an American professional basketball player who garnered an additional $1.5 million playing in Russian for UMMC Ekaterinburg
From her career, she has gained a famous reputation along with money as Griner also became the first gay athlete to sign with Nike.
Salary:
Before her arrest, Griner played basketball for UMMC Ekaterinburg, a Russian women’s basketball team while also being a member of the WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury.
As The New York Times reported, Americans play in the Russian league — because the pay is better than in American leagues (especially leagues like UMMC Ekaterinburg).
Griner reportedly earned $1 million from the Russia-based team, more than the WNBA’s maximum base salary of about $230,000.
Brittney Griner’s annual salary is $107,000, which is the WNBA max bail. Like other top WNBA players, Brittney periodically plays in China for huge payouts. For example, in 2014, she won $600,000 to play for a Chinese team (the Zhejiang Golden Bulls) for 4 months. The amount of salary she took home was recorded as 12 times the amount she made in her rookie season with the Mercury.
We don’t know if it was the increase in Brittney Griner’s pay but the basketball star was MVP of the 2014 WCBA All-Star Game.
Career:
2012 Best Female Athlete ESPY Award winner Brittney Yevette Griner is a professional center basketball player for the Women’s National Basketball Association, Phoenix Mercury team. At Baylor University, she played college basketball in Waco, Texas. She was named Player of the Year in 2012, as well as the Player of the Quarterfinals.
Griner is the youngest of four children to come into this world on October 18, 1990, to her father Raymond and her mom Sandra Griner in Houston, Texas, USA.
2009:
Griner was educated at Nimitz High School in Houston. During high school, she played varsity volleyball. In her senior year, she played basketball in the Texas 5A Women’s Basketball State Championship Game, where she played 32 games and dunked 52 times, holding a record of seven dunks in a single game. She managed to record 25 blocks in a game with Houston Alief Hastings, which led her to set the record for most high school games played in the United States by a woman.
In 2009, she was named WBCA All-America and played in the game. She scored 20 points and had 9 rebounds for the team. In 2009, she was named State Farm/WBCA High School Player of the Year and was featured in ESPN’s Rise magazine.
2010:
Griner played college basketball for Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
During her junior year, she was described as one of the greatest shot blockers in women’s basketball history after blocking 223 shots. She set an NCAA tournament record after blocking 14 shots against the Georgetown Hoyas on March 22, 2010.
2011:
In September 2011, during the European training tour, Griner averaged 12.8 points and 7.3 rebounds in Europe. In 2011, she won the WBCA NCAA Division 1 Defensive Player of the Year and played for the USA national team for two weeks under head coach Geno Auriemma.
2012:
Griner was the 2012 winner of the WBCA NCAA Division 1 Defensive Player of the Year (which she won again in 2013).
In 2012, she was honored with the Honda Award and winner of the all-sport Honda-Broderick Cup. In 2012, Griner also won the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award.
2013:
In the year 2013, Brittney Griner started playing basketball professionally after being selected by the Phoenix Mercury as the first overall pick in the 2013 WNBA draft.
Her career trajectory in the WNBA showed a lot of promise because she was a beast at 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m).
Griner debuted one game on May 27, 2013, playing against the Chicago Sky. Since then, she has been Mercury’s cornerstone in the WNBA and won the 2014 WNBA Finals.
In 2013, Griner took home for the third time in her career the ESPY Award for Best Female Collegiate Athlete and the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award.
2014:
Brittney set a career high of 15.6 points, 8.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game in the year 2014. She also signed a multi-year contract extension with Mercury on June 29, 2014.
She is a member of the US national team that won the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
2016:
Griner represented the United States at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. She has received numerous honors as the number one high school player in the country.
2017-2022:
On March 12, 2017, Griner re-signed with Mercury to a multi-year contract once her rookie contract expired and went on to have the best season of her career to that point.
On June 7, 2017, Griner scored 9 rebounds and 38 points in a 98–90 overtime win which was a career-high against the Indiana Fever.
Although Griner missed 8 games of the season and the 2017 WNBA All-Star Game due to ankle and knee injuries, she was able to conclude the 2017 season leading the league in scoring with 21.9 points per game and leading the league in scoring for the fifth straight season number of blockages.
Griner won her second gold medal and was subsequently named to the national team for the 2020 Olympics (held in 2021 in Tokyo, Japan). She is also a two-time winner of the FIBA Women’s World Cup with Team USA (2014 and 2018).
On February 17, 2022, Griner was arrested in Russia on drug charges. On December 8, she was released at an airport in the United Arab Emirates following an exchange with a notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had been imprisoned in the United States on charges of involvement in arms smuggling.
So, who is the richest player in the WNBA?
Jackie Young of the Aces has an average annual salary of $252,450 and is currently the WNBA’s highest-paid player in 2023.
Prior to her professional career in the WNBA, Young played college basketball for the University of Notre Dame in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) league from 2016 to 2019. In 2018, she and her team won the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship.
She was selected 1st overall by the Las Vegas Aces in the 2019 WNBA Draft, for whom she has played in the North American women’s professional basketball league ever since. In the 2022 season, she was honored with the WNBA Most Improved Player Award.
At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, held in July and August 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Young won her first Olympic gold medal with the US team in the women’s 3×3 basketball tournament.
Other FAQs about Brittney:
What happened between Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson?
On August 14, 2014, she announced that she was engaged to Glory Johnson, also a WNBA player, and got married on May 15, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona.
After a day, the couple announced that Johnson is pregnant, on June 5, 2015, Griner filed for the marriage to be canceled citing duress and fraud, as she has no biological connection to the baby. On April 22, 2015, they were arrested after police caught the couple fighting at their home in Goodyear, Arizona. On May 15, 2015, the WNBA suspended Griner and Johnson for seven games and was ordered to attend domestic violence counseling for 26 weeks. The couple are currently divorced as of March 2023 and Brittney Griner’s new wife is Cherelle Griner.
Who is Brittney Griner’s new wife?
Cherelle Griner revealed that she first met Brittney at Mooyah Burgers on the Baylor campus but at the same time was going through a difficult personal situation.
Former WNBA star Glory Johnson and Brit ended their marriage after 28 days in 2015. During an interview with Time in July 2022, Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle, shared that BG enjoys hanging out with different people and often used to have lunch with Phoenix Arena security staff.
Cherelle was impressed with how Griner seemed to know all of the employees who worked there. BG’s wife continued, “She often goes to the Phoenix arena employee lounge for lunch with security because she says, ‘I want to know all my co-workers”.
Why was it so hard to bring Brittney Griner back to the US?
After her arrest in Russia for carrying inhaler cartridges containing hash oil, which is illegal in Russia, the country went to war with Ukraine. After this invasion US officials feared Griner would be used to retaliate against US sanctions against Russia.
Democratic Rep. Sheria Jackson Lee called for Griner’s release and in another interview with CNN, California Democratic Rep. John Garamendi said it would be very difficult to get Griner back from Russia, saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased diplomatic tensions between Russia and the United States, prompting the release of Griner.
Will the US send their athletes to Russia after what happened with Brittney Griner?
WNBA star Brittney Griner’s life changed in February when she was arrested by Russian authorities for illegal drug possession. However, these contracts with American athletes are potentially a thing of the past, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the detention and treatment of Griner.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison for the drug charge, a decision many say was unfair and unequal to the crime of carrying hash oil cartridges. According to some experts, this may give Russia more leverage in any negotiations to release the athlete.
