WNBA stars Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi have both expressed their intentions to remain with the Phoenix Mercury next season and to play at the 2024 Paris Olympics. <\/p>\n
The Mercury\u2019s season ended on Sunday, as the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2012. Phoenix finished last in the league standings at 9-31. <\/p>\n
As she prepares to enter the upcoming offseason as a free agent, Griner, who turns 33 in October, said she intends to sign with the Mercury. <\/p>\n
\u201cPhoenix is home. It\u2019s where I\u2019ve been,\u201d Griner told reporters. \u201cMe and my wife literally just got a place (here). This is it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Regarding the Paris Olympics next year, the two-time gold medalist said: \u201cIf I get the invite, I\u2019m going to show up, of course. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no greater honor than playing for the USA, playing for your country. I\u2019ve got some really good memories with Team USA, so I would love the chance to continue that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Griner returned to play with the Mercury this season after she was freed in December from wrongful detention in Russia. Earlier this year, she said that she will \u201cnever go overseas again\u201d to play basketball in light of what happened, unless it\u2019s for the Olympics. <\/p>\n
The nine-time All-Star added that she plans to use the upcoming offseason to get herself properly conditioned for the 2024 season. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust conditioning, getting my weight where I want it and not trying to do that in the middle of the season, pretty hard, pretty tough,\u201d Griner said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to take this first offseason that I have now I\u2019ve never had before, where I could actually work on myself \u2013 my game, body, conditioning, everything, studying the game and not having to worry about what my team needs from me if I was overseas. Now, I can just worry about what I need to do for my team here this whole offseason.\u201d <\/p>\n
Griner got visibly emotional when asked about the death of Bill Richardson, the former Democratic governor of New Mexico who traveled to Russia to discuss Griner\u2019s possible release with Kremlin officials. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was very tough,\u201d Griner said. \u201cReally good man. So much good. So much good. I owe a lot to him.\u201d <\/p>\n
Taurasi, meanwhile, will be 42 next season, and she is under contract for the Mercury in 2024. During the season, Taurasi became the first player in WNBA history to score 10,000 career points. <\/p>\n
She told reporters that she\u2019s excited about what the Mercury will do in free agency and with salary cap space. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got another year on my contract and I\u2019m definitely going to fulfill that,\u201d Taurasi said. <\/p>\n
Regarding the Olympics, she said that she\u2019ll \u201cbe doing my best to hopefully be on that team.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m lucky enough to be on that team, I\u2019ll be ready to represent my country,\u201d Taurasi added. <\/p>\n\n
WNBA stars Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi have both expressed their intentions to remain with the Phoenix Mercury next season and to play at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The Mercury\u2019s season ended on Sunday, as the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2012. Phoenix finished last in the league standings at 9-31. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}