Mercury's Brittney Griner to miss 2-game trip, focus on mental health

Alexa Philippou, ESPN Jul 30, 2023, 03:02 AM
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- Covers females’s university basketball as well as the WNBA
- Formerly covered UConn as well as the WNBA Connecticut Sunlight for the Hartford Courant
- Stanford grad as well as Baltimore indigenous with more experience at the Dallas Early Morning Information, Seattle Times as well as Cincinnati Enquirer

Brittney Griner will certainly not take a trip with the Phoenix az Mercury on their upcoming two-game journey to Chicago as well as Indiana, to ensure that she can concentrate on her psychological wellness, the group revealed Saturday.

Griner has actually shown up in 20 of 23 ready Phoenix az in her very first period because her prominent detention in Russia in 2014, which lasted almost 10 months.

” The Mercury totally sustain Brittney as well as we will certainly remain to collaborate on a timeline for her return,” a declaration from the group claimed.

Griner has actually been a brilliant area for an or else having a hard time Mercury group that presently rests 10th in the WNBA standings at 6-17. The 6-foot-9 facility has actually balanced 18.2 factors, 6.7 rebounds as well as 1.7 blocks per video game, leading Phoenix az in each of those groups, as well as gained her 9th All-Star option last month.

Gains eighth-place Chicago as well as 11th-place Indiana would certainly aid Phoenix az pick up speed in safeguarding a postseason quote. The Mercury have not missed out on the playoffs because 2012.

While the Mercury will certainly lack Griner this trip, guard Diana Taurasi is off the injury record after being sidelined with a quad contusion as well as left huge toe injury. Taurasi, the WNBA’s all-time leading marker, has actually shown up in 16 video games this summer season as well as is 71 factors far from striking 10,000 profession factors.