Brittney Griner is eager to make her season debut this weekend in Minnesota after being entangled in a series of troubling off-court episodes.
The 6-foot-8 star will return to the Phoenix Mercury lineup Saturday having served her record seven-game suspension after a domestic violence arrest in April.
“Basketball is my safe zone, being back on the court means everything for me, basketball is my life,” Griner said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I’m ready to go. I definitely have been watching and I have been doing everything off the court to be on the court.”
Besides the WNBA suspension, Griner pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and agreed to undergo 26 weeks of domestic violence counseling. If she completes it, the charges will be dismissed. Griner and her then-fiancee Glory Johnson were arrested on April 22 at their home in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear.
It’s been a crazy nine months for Griner since she helped the Mercury win the WNBA championship last September. First, she was the victim of a random knife attack in China, where she suffered a small cut when she was struck by a man while boarding a bus after practice last November.