MIAMI — A heart-warming, feel-good story dressed up in a “she’ll be home for the holidays” narrative. Brittney Griner’s release from Russian detention on Thursday in a prisoner exchange was all of that. Wife Cherelle could not stop smiling, calling herself “overwhelmed with emotion” and saying, ”My family is whole again.”
It was a happy ending, but the nightmare that preceded it goes on for others. Just as the reason one of the WNBA’s biggest stars was in Russia in the first place goes on.
The exchange engineered by the White House was 1 for 1. We got Griner. Russia gets back notorious international arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed the Merchant of Death. To say their crimes were on a similar scale would be a million miles from accurate. The exchange took place in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
“She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” President Joe Biden tweeted.
But Paul Whelan, a retired U.S. Marine, remains wrongly imprisoned in Russia, as do other Americans. Whelan is four years into a 16-year sentence after being convicted on espionage charges the United States calls fabricated.
“B.G. and I remain committed to getting every American home including Paul,” said Cherelle Griner, “B.G.” her nickname for Brittney.
Before the happy ending for the Griners, Brittney, a gay Black woman, spent 10 months detained in a country hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, as not so much a prisoner as a political pawn. She turned 32 in detention. She had been serving a nine-year sentence after a cannabis-derived oil cartridge was found in her luggage at a Russian airport.
She had been trying to head home in February just as Russia and Vladimir Putin were beginning their unprovoked, heinous invasion of Ukraine, a war that goes on.
Griner, a high-profile American athlete — two-time Olympic gold medalist and star for the Phoenix Mercury — surely was detained at least in part for leverage against sanctions the United States might be considering against Russia over the invasion. Those initially included halting the flow of Russian gas and oil to the United States, which further crippled the Russian economy but likely also complicated and delayed Griner’s eventual release.
I remember thinking, when learning of her detention in February, “What on earth was Brittney Griner doing in Russia!?”
Making a living, it turned out.
Roughly half of the WNBA’s 144 players competed overseas in 2022, by necessity, not choice. It was not Griner’s lifelong dream to play in Ekaterinburg, Russia, as a second job.
Low WNBA salaries force the situation that found Griner in Russia — a problem that did not magically get a happy ending Thursday.
Base minimum salaries in the WNBA range from $60,471 to $228,094. Women, especially stars such as Griner, can earn up to $1 million playing overseas.
The NBA founded the WNBA. In the NBA dozens of players including the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler make at least $30 million per year.
Do WNBA players deserve to make NBA money? No. The men’s season is longer and the game much more popular and lucrative.
But the NBA has a moral obligation to see WNBA pay increased to a level so players such as Griner are not forced to spend their offseasons chasing money overseas.
Griner, a freed woman back in America, back with her family, is all ways wonderful.
But the story goes on.
It won’t end until fair wages in the WNBA mean economic freedom for players.
And it will not end until all Americans wrongly jailed in Russia get the same homecoming that Brittney Griner is enjoying today.
