Basketball legend Lisa Leslie said she was told not to make a “big fuss” over the arrest of WNBA great Britney Griner in Russia.
Speaking in a recent episode of the “I Am Athlete” podcast, Leslie opened up about the “heartbreaking” situation she’s found herself in after she was asked not to bring too much attention to the case, to avoid Russia from capitalizing on the incident.
“What we were told, and again this is all sort of passed along through hearsay, but what we were told was to not make a big fuss about it so that they could not use her as a pawn, so to speak, in this situation in the war,” Leslie said in a clip of the episode shared on YouTube Friday.
“So, to make it like it’s not that important or don’t make it where we’re like, ‘Free Brittney’ and we start this campaign, and then it becomes something that they can use,” she added.
Leslie, a three-time WNBA MVP and four-time Olympic gold medalist, played 11 seasons in the WNBA with the Los Angeles Sparks. She was inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.
In the two-minute-long clip, Leslie didn’t specify who might have directed her to maintain a low profile about the issue.
It’s also unclear when the interview was recorded, but the full episode is set to premiere Monday.
Griner, a seven-time WNBA All-Star center for the Phoenix Mercury, was arrested by Russian authorities on Feb. 17.
Earlier this month, Russian officials announced they had detained the athlete, who’s also a two-time Olympic gold medalist, after hashish oil was allegedly found in her luggage at an airport in Moscow.
She’s been accused of smuggling large quantities of a narcotic substance, an offense that can carry a sentence of up to 10 years behind bars.
Her current situation is currently unclear, but the openly gay athlete will remain in Russia — a notoriously anti-LGBTQ country, where public discussions or positive messages about LGBTQ issues are illegal — until at least May 19.
“Do we know if that’s the right thing to do or not?” Leslie asked, wondering if keeping quiet about the situation is indeed the best way to bring the incident to an end.
“It’s heartbreaking for all of us … You want to do more, and think, should we all use our social media platform and get behind it or not? Nobody really [knows]. This is the first time we’re in this situation, and we don’t know what to do.
“I talk with Dawn Staley, and people that I’m close with. We talk about it daily. We’re just like ‘Dang what’s she doing now? Do you think they cut off her hair? Does she have a bed long enough to fit in?’ We’ve had full-on conversations about it, and I’m like, ‘Her parents got to be sick,’ ” she added. “The question is, what’s the right thing to do about it?”
