The top priority of the Phoenix Mercury front office has been to help bring Brittney Griner home safely after she was wrongfully detained by Russia in February. It didn’t matter if their eight-time All-Star center never played in the WNBA again.
On Friday, Griner put speculation on her basketball future to rest in her first public statement since touching down on U.S. soil. And it surely brought jubilation to the Mercury, some of whom surprised Griner with a visit that morning.
“I also want to make one thing very clear: I intend to play basketball for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury this season, and in doing so, I look forward to being able to say ‘thank you’ to those of you who advocated, wrote, and posted for me in person soon,” Griner wrote on Instagram.
It’s welcome news for the team, the league and the entire basketball fan base. Griner, 32, is a larger-than-life personality — as the world has come to see — and the season felt empty without her presence. As the WNBA Players Association said in a statement last week, “our 144 is complete.”
Now the Mercury front office can leap into free agency with a better picture and complete its own 11 or 12. Teams can begin to negotiate with their own free agents, which includes Griner, on Jan. 21. Deals can be signed on Feb. 1. It will be a much different team than the one in place when Griner was detained 10 months ago.
Mercury’s season without Brittney Griner
In strict basketball terms, being without Griner for the 2022 season was a tough break for the franchise after the front office went all-in to win a fourth championship. The former No. 1 overall pick from Baylor was an MVP candidate in 2021, averaging nearly a double-double (20.5 ppg, 9.5 rpg) and leading the Mercury to the WNBA Finals alongside All-Star guards Diana Taurasi and Skylar Diggins-Smith.
The Mercury signed former MVP Tina Charles to a one-year deal in one of the splashier moves in the league. It was murky how the two centers would fare on a WNBA team together (they play together with USA Basketball), but what was crystal clear was the franchise’s catapult into top title contender.
It was a stacked squad that featured two MVPs (Charles, Taurasi), three No. 1 draft picks (Taurasi, Charles, Diggins-Smith), five 2021 Olympians and nine single-season scoring champions (Taurasi 5, Griner 2, Charles 2). They also added wing Diamond DeShields, who won the 2021 title with the Chicago Sky, in a three-team trade.
Things fell apart quickly for the Mercury under first-year head coach Vanessa Nygaard, who took her first WNBA head coaching job two months before news of Griner’s detainment went public. Weeks into the season, cameras caught Taurasi and Diggins-Smith needing to be separated on the bench. A month later, Charles agreed to a “contract divorce” — the league’s language for a buyout — and joined the Seattle Storm. Issues between Nygaard and Diggins-Smith continued through All-Star weekend as they sank below .500.
Phoenix made the playoffs as the eighth and final seed, but were without Griner (wrongfully detained), Taurasi (quad injury), Diggins-Smith (personal reasons) and Shey Peddy (ruptured Achilles in Game 1 of the first round). They plummeted in offensive rating, going from third (102.7) in 2021 to eighth (98.7) with one of the worst shooting percentages. While their defensive rating ranked about the same, they gave up five more points and ranked dead last in rebounds.
While the Las Vegas Aces, who defeated the Mercury in a best-of-three opening series, were en route to their first title, Mercury and Suns owner Robert Sarver was suspended for a year and fined $10 million following a lengthy investigation into workplace misconduct allegations. He later announced plans to sell the teams.
Looking into 2023
The three largest roster questions for the Mercury are around their “big three” of Griner, Taurasi and Diggins-Smith. Phoenix has the fifth-most salary cap room with $881,650 of an approximate $1.42 million cap available, but will again deal with fitting in a minimum 11-player roster around its big three’s big salaries.
Griner and Taurasi, both unrestricted free agents, have said they will be back with the Mercury. They each made at or slightly below the supermax of $228,094 in 2022 (Griner was still paid while wrongfully detained, but it did not count against the Mercury’s cap). If they each make the supermax again, it would take up a combined $469,872.
Taurasi, 40, has dealt with injuries in recent seasons that kept her out of the lineup, but her production has been similar to others in her 18-year career. The Mercury’s free agency decisions last offseason were an attempt to get her a fourth ring before she likely retires in the coming years. Other players, such as Sue Bird and Charles, have taken pay cuts in order to give other players more money and increase the chances of winning a title.
The Mercury have $538,850 tied up in Diggins-Smith ($234,350), DeShields ($154,500) and Brianna Turner ($150,000). Signing both stars to supermaxes would leave approximately $411,000 for six players, putting them in the same situation as recent years in that younger or less established players will need to fill out the roster. That’s in sharp contrast to a team like the reigning champion Aces, who signed five standout starters at nearly all below $200K each.
The minimum salary for players with three years or more of experience is $74,305 and for less is $62,285. Sophie Cunningham (restricted), Kia Nurse (unrestricted), Megan Gustafson (restricted) and Peddy (restricted) all played near those marks in 2022. But Cunningham will likely look for a raise and Peddy could be out longer term in rehab.
The final lingering question is Diggins-Smith. She was reportedly on the trading block at the deadline last year as chemistry issues appeared to rise between her and Nygaard. Then she missed the final weeks of the season for undisclosed reasons. But in exit interviews, general manager Jim Pitman said he expected her back since she is under contract.
In October, she announced she was pregnant with her second child, which is likely why she missed those games. It’s unclear if she will return next season to play. Assuming she announced at around three months pregnant, the due date would be around April or May. The WNBA season will tip off on May 19. Players are still paid while pregnant and on maternity leave. It’s bubbled up as the collective bargaining opt-out approaches in a few seasons.
Returning to play postpartum is different for everyone. Some have done it as soon as six weeks and others have taken longer. Diggins-Smith, 32, returned nine weeks after giving birth to her son in April 2017 and later detailed a difficult experience with the Dallas Wings organization and two months of postpartum depression.
Not much has come out about the issues inside the locker room in Phoenix other than Nygaard telling the media the Griner situation weighed heavily on the team daily. With Griner and Taurasi back, the 2023 season should be a better litmus test for if Nygaard is the right fit there. They are automatically top-half contenders given the return of the glass-clearing Griner, but it could again be difficult to form a roster around them that can step up and compete at a high level every night. That’s especially true if Diggins-Smith misses the year and Taurasi is out with another injury.