As the WNBA season begins, Brittney Griner's absence should rattle the country [View all]

A somber WNBA season begins Friday night. Instead of looking at the running clock, you can measure the league’s time by counting the days Brittney Griner has spent in Russian captivity. She has been a prisoner for 78 now. Two years ago, at the start of the pandemic, the sport played an entire bubble season in 97 days.

What should be a wholly festive time is forced to seem funereal. In all 12 WNBA cities, arenas will feature “BG42” court decals to maintain awareness of Griner, whose detainment is now deemed wrongful by the U.S. government. It’s not often that a common method of memorialization is used to honor a person still with us. Sometimes, though, her situation feels that dire.

As our nation shifts to a more vigorous negotiation of Griner’s release, the case is no longer a geopolitical quandary in which the best option is to stay quiet and move gingerly through the Russian legal system. That may have been the initial, diplomatic approach to trying to free Griner, but as she awaits a May 19 hearing, the United States has seemingly acknowledged the hopelessness of justice.

Griner’s freedom may turn into a crude issue of value. How much does she mean to America? And what can Russia get in return for her release? If so, there is no longer a credible reason not to make Griner’s predicament what it has yet to become: the biggest story in American sports.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/the-brittney-griner-case-hangs-over-this-wnba-season-and-the-league-s-future/ar-AAWYYLL