Brittney Griner takes mental health break after just 20 games

Brittney Griner, perhaps the only recognizable name in all of the WNBA, will not be joining her Phoenix Mercury teammates on their road trip this week. Instead, she will take some time to focus on her mental health, the team confirmed.

Griner, 32, did not travel to Chicago for the Mercury's game against the Sky on Sunday afternoon, a game in which the Sky trounced the Mercury 104-85. She will also miss the Mercury's game against the Indiana Fever in Indianapolis on Tuesday night. Whether she will play at home on Thursday against Atlanta remains to be seen.

In a statement released on Saturday, the Phoenix Mercury expressed support for Griner and her decision to take this personal time-out. "The Mercury fully support Brittney and we will continue to work together on a timeline for her return," the team statement said, leaving the extent of Griner's leave of absence a bit ambiguous.

Griner, of course, missed all of the 2022 WNBA season because she was incarcerated in Russia over a drug charge. Last December, after spending 10 months behind bars, she was released in a prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia. After the swap, America got a high-profile WNBA All-Star center back, and the so-called "Merchant of Death" Viktor Bout, convicted in U.S. federal court of trafficking weapons to a known terrorist organization and attempting to kill Americans, was sent back to Russia a free man.

Thus far in 2023, Griner has played in 20 of the Mercury's 24 games and is averaging over 18 points and 6.7 assists per game. Despite those respectable stats from Griner, the team has had an abysmal season. The Mercury have an overall record of just 6-18, good for fifth place out six in the Western Conference. In fact, the team has performed so poorly this year that former head coach Vanessa Nygaard was fired in late June after the team started the season just 2-10.

Though Griner has delivered for her team on the court, she has also continued to be a distraction off the court. In April, she claimed that men who identify as women ought to be allowed to play on women's sports teams. "Everyone deserves the right to play," she said at the time. "Everyone deserves the right to come here, sit in these seats, and feel safe and not feel like there's a threat or they can't be who they are."

Then on June 10, Griner positioned herself as the victim of harassment at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport after comedian and BlazeTV host Alex Stein confronted her about gaining her freedom through a controversial prisoner swap. "Was that a fair trade?" Stein asked her in the public space. "... I know you killed on the court, but [Bout] killed in real life."

Alex Stein CALLS OUT Brittney Griner (FULL VIDEO)www.youtube.com

After a clip of Stein's attempted interaction with Griner went viral on social media, the WNBA slammed Stein as a "provocateur" whose behavior that day was "inappropriate and unfortunate." However, Stein may have done Griner and the rest of the WNBA players a favor since the incident put significant pressure on league executives to allow teams to take charter flights for away games rather than forcing them to fly commercial.

"I think we should have already had the option to use a different airline, a more private airline, charter flights," Griner said on June 26, about two weeks after her confrontation with Stein. "It's a shame that it had to get to rock bottom, because I feel like waiting for something to happen and then making a change ... you don't know what that something's gonna be."

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