The Biden administration is facing increased urgency from prominent voices in the sport of basketball calling on “anybody with high enough power to help get Brittney Griner back home.”
Phoenix Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard questioned if Griner would still be detained if she was LeBron James, while UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers said that “it’s definitely time” for Griner’s detainment in Russia to end.
Griner was arrested on Feb. 17 after Russian police allegedly discovered cannabis vaping cartridges in her possession. She could face 10 years in prison if convicted.
‘WON’T LET THEM BREAK ME’: LETTERS FROM BRITTNEY GRINER REVEAL STRUGGLE IN RUSSIA
“If it was LeBron, he’d be home, right?” Nygaard asked while speaking to reporters Monday. “It’s a statement about the value of women. It’s a statement about the value of a black person. It’s a statement about the value of a gay person. All of those things. We know it, and so that’s what hurts a little more.”
Bueckers is also speaking out, telling ESPN’s NBA Today that Griner should have been home a while ago.
“Just a message to President Biden, the government, and anybody with high enough power to help get Brittney Griner back home: I believe it’s way far due for her to come home, and she’s an American,” Bueckers said. “She’s a hero. She’s our sister in the WNBA, and she’s just family to the whole United States. So, just whatever it takes to get her home, I think it’s definitely time.”
@paigebueckers1 closes out her interview with @malika_andrews with a powerful message on Brittney Griner:
“Whatever it takes to get her home … I think it’s definitely time.” pic.twitter.com/jf89kBOFi9
— ESPN (@espn) July 5, 2022
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and WNBA star wrote a letter from jail to plead with President Joe Biden for help.
The State Department designated Griner as “wrongfully detained” in May, allowing her case to be handled by the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.
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“This is an issue that is a priority for [Biden], as you have heard us say before,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “He believes that any U.S. national that is held abroad or detained or held hostage abroad, we need to bring back safely, and we are going to use every tool that we possibly can to make that happen.”
Griner’s trial in Russia began Friday.
