By: Derick Zhang

On February 17th a Brittney Griner was convicted for drug trafficking in Russian airport to play from another team during the period that her American basketball team was taking a brake to make more revenue. Her sentence was 1 million rubles which is around $16,000 dollars and 9 years in a Russian penal colony, a place far from civilization for holding prisoners. This person’s name is Brittney Griner, a pro basketball player and star for the Phoenix Mercury, a WNBA Western Conference team.

The reason why this conviction is important is not only because the Mercury’s lost their star player, but because she wasn’t actually carrying what we would call illegal drugs. The WNBA player was carrying hashish oil, a cannabis derivative which is illegal in Russia. She carried this to relieve herself from pain and injuries and said she had packed hashish oil in a vape pen by mistake.

Back at home, Griner’s teammates are devastated and in tears with their eyes glued to the TV, there was a game soon and they were supposed to warmup, and they did a ‘version’ of a warmup. No one wanted to play everyone was thinking about Griner, the opposing team wore purple and orange No. 42 jersey’s during pre-game warm up and the staff wore the same.

Sharon White, a fan of the Connecticut Sun dancers was and still is wearing the Mercury colors. She wears it to every game under no conditions. And that game, on the 42nd second of the game everyone liked arms and chanted “We are B.G” and “Bring Her Home”. Even the government wants her back. In May, the state department said that it has given Russia a proposal to send Griner back home. So she can do what she does best, play basketball.