Brittney Griner turned back the clock on Monday night. The Connecticut Sun center dropped a season-high 29 points on 11-of-14 shooting, added 10 rebounds, and helped her team hold off the Minnesota Lynx 90-89 on the road. For a player many had already started writing off, it was the loudest answer yet.
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Griner addressed the performance herself after the game.
“Just feeling good, body feels good. The beginning of the season had a little thing that kind of kept me out for a little bit, but finally got over that, and just feeling really good,” Griner said in her post-game press conference. “[I] dropped all that weight that I’ve been carrying on me since I came back from the Russia stuff, and I feel like my old self again.”
The comment cuts right to why this game mattered beyond the box score. Griner turns 36 later this year, and her decline over the past two seasons had mostly been chalked up to age. She averaged just 9.8 points and 5.2 rebounds across 39 games with the Atlanta Dream in 2025, the lowest marks in her career. When she signed with Connecticut this offseason, it read to many as a player winding down her career on a rebuilding roster rather than chasing a real comeback.
Monday’s game complicated that narrative. Her post moves looked smooth again, she worked well within the pick-and-roll, and she even stepped out for a couple of jump shots. It was the clearest sign yet that what’s held her back these past few seasons wasn’t just her age.
Griner has open about the toll her 2022 detention in Russia took on her, both mentally and physically. She was convicted of drug smuggling that August and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony before the US government secured her release in December. The US government traded convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner’s freedom after nearly 10 months in custody. That ordeal hit right as her career was entering a different kind of peak.
“Before the Russia stuff happened, I felt like I was prime body, doing good, and then it took a lot to come back from that, honestly. Longer than what I thought it was going to take, honestly,” Griner further said. “But I feel like I’m back, feel like I’m moving good, feel great out there. I got a lot of basketball left in me, honestly.”
That’s refreshing to hear after an offseason full of retirement speculation. Monday’s showing against Minnesota should put a lot of that talk to rest. It’s also a reminder of just how far Griner has had to travel to get back to a version of herself she once took for granted.
That same story is now reaching an audience well beyond basketball.
Brittney Griner Reveals Why She Adapted Her 2024 Memoir for Young Readers
In 2024, Griner published a book entitled “Coming Home,” which detailed her nightmare experience in a Russian penal colony in unflinching detail. Earlier this year, she released a young-adult adaptation of the book, hoping the same story could reach people who needed it most but couldn’t access the original.
“I hope they see that you can go through adversity and come out the other end on top. You can come out depending on how you handle yourself, lock in, work on yourself, and persevere. You can lean on your faith and your family,” she said. “There are a lot of different things you can take from it. I just hope somebody can learn through my experiences in life and have an easier life. Honestly, that’s the biggest thing I want people to take from the book, the story, whatever. I hope it can help somebody have a little bit easier life.”
Brittney Griner is the prime example of perseverance in adversity. She might not average 20+ points a game like she once did. Yet, the fact that she can find herself loving the sport is a win in itself. It can and will inspire generations to come.