Brittney Griner Reveals Conversation That Led to Phoenix Mercury Exit

One of the most shocking moves of the WNBA offseason was veteran center Brittney Griner leaving the Phoenix Mercury (where she had spent the first 11 seasons of her WNBA career and went to 10 All-Star Games, was a two-time league scoring champion, and won the 2014 WNBA championship) to sign with the Atlanta Dream in free agency.

While there hadn't been a ton of information about what went into Griner's decision, this changed when the WNBA icon spoke about her leaving the Mercury as part of a May 16 article from ESPN's Ramona Shelburne.

"Things changed when the Mercury informed her before free agency that they were likely going in a different direction. Phoenix ended up revamping its roster by trading for forwards Satou Sabally and Alyssa Thomas," Shelburne wrote.

"I was doing everything as if I was going to still have that jersey on," Griner was then quoted saying. "Then there was a meeting right before I left to go to Unrivaled and I found out like, 'Oh, it looks like they want to do something different. This is news to me.' I wish I would've known way sooner, but hey, life happens."

When asked if she was given an option to return to the Mercury, Griner later added, "Basically was told that I don't know what your future holds. After I heard that, it became my decision. Because I want to be somewhere where they know they want me, where they believe in me and my game."

As ⁦@brittneygriner⁩ prepares to make her Atlanta Dream debut tonight, she tells ⁦@espn⁩ “You get comfortable and sometimes you don't want to get out of that bubble. But it's like the one thing that you need." https://t.co/rlG6BFCWpb
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) May 16, 2025

It will be fascinating to see how Griner looks while playing with the Dream, whose 2025 regular season is about an hour away from tipping off.

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