Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving kicked off the 2022-2023 NBA season with a "special opening night message" of support for WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Irving and the rest of the team stood before the game on Wednesday and addressed what he said was "the big picture in the world" — freeing "our sister Brittney."
“Please, please POTUS, do your job. Everybody do your job, please bring our sister home,” he said.
Irving then thanked the crowd for attending the game, which prompted chants of "Kyrie" from the audience.
His comments followed those of the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry on Tuesday night, who also called for Griner’s freedom.
“Brittney Griner’s birthday is today, she’s 32. We want to continue to let her name be known, and we pray," he said. "It’s been 243 days since she was wrongfully incarcerated in Russia. We hope that she comes home soon, that everybody’s doing their part to get her home.”
Griner was detained in Moscow in February when airport officials found cannabis oil inside her luggage. A Russian court convicted her of drug smuggling in August and sentenced her to nine years in a penal colony.
The WNBA star has been imprisoned in Moscow since her initial arrest, and celebrated her 32nd birthday in a Russian jail on Tuesday. Griner’s legal team plans to appeal the Russian court’s sentence on 25 October.
Outside the appeals process Griner’s best chance at returning home lies with the US State Department and the White House.
Joe Biden met with the WNBA star’s wife, Cherelle Griner, and reportedly assured her he would fight to bring Brittney Griner home.
The State Department has reportedly pitched Russia the idea of a prisoner swap, trading Griner and Paul Whelan — an American former Marine accused of spying — in exchange for the release of the "Merchant of Death" arms dealer Viktor Bout. Bout used his air transport companies and the smoke screen caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union to smuggle weapons throughout much of the eastern hemisphere.
Alexander Darchiev, the head of the Foreign Ministry’s North America department, suggested that Moscow was open to the idea of a swap.
Per Cherelle Griner, her wife fears that she will be transferred out of Moscow to work in a Russian camp should the appeal and attempts at a swap fail.
