Sports
Griner rejoining Mercury after missing 3 games to focus on her mental health – ESPN – ESPN
The Phoenix Mercury’s Brittney Griner is expected to return to play Saturday after missing the previous three games due to mental health reasons, the team announced Friday.
Griner has appeared in 20 of 26 games for Phoenix in her first season back following her high-profile detainment in Russia last year, which lasted nearly 10 months. The 6-foot-9 center leads the team in scoring (18.2 points per game), rebounding (6.7 boards per game) and blocks (1.7 rejections per game) and earned her ninth All-Star selection last month.
Griner missed the team’s most recent two-game road trip while she was out, as well as Thursday’s home matchup versus the Atlanta Dream, where teammate Diana Taurasi became the first WNBA player to score 10,000 career points. But Griner did join the team for its post-game festivities celebrating Taurasi, donning Taurasi’s jersey.
Phoenix (7-19), which hasn’t missed the postseason since 2012, sits in 10th place in the WNBA standings and 3.5 games back from the eighth-place Chicago Sky going into Friday’s games. Griner and the Mercury face the last-place Seattle Storm Saturday at 10 p.m. ET.