CULTURETECHLENSBrittney Griner
VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)
Combined Graph record U-07949 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7077.
Brittney Griner (born October 18, 1990) is an American center whose dominance at Baylor and with the Phoenix Mercury made her one of the most recognizable players in the world — and whose 2022 detention in Russia made her a figure of international diplomacy. The first overall pick of the celebrated 2013 draft, she won the 2014 WNBA championship with Phoenix and spent eleven seasons with the Mercury, earning ten All-Star selections and two Defensive Player of the Year awards. In February 2022, traveling to her Russian offseason club, she was detained at a Moscow-area airport after cartridges containing medically prescribed hashish oil were found in her luggage; U.S. officials designated her wrongfully detained, and in August 2022 a Russian court sentenced her to nine years in prison. On December 8, 2022, she was released in a prisoner exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout and returned to the WNBA in May 2023. She played for the Atlanta Dream in 2025 and signed with the Connecticut Sun for the 2026 season.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
Brittney Griner (born October 18, 1990) is an American center whose dominance at Baylor and with the Phoenix Mercury made her one of the most recognizable players in the world — and whose 2022 detention in Russia made her a figure of international diplomacy. The first overall pick of the celebrated 2013 draft, she won the 2014 WNBA championship with Phoenix and spent eleven seasons with the Mercury, earning ten All-Star selections and two Defensive Player of the Year awards.
Notes
NOT in the AAES roster v2 — roster-addition proposal for the AAES intake; no SPE id invented. Phoenix, Atlanta, and Connecticut are not homed in the graph, so no played_for edges. DETENTION FRAMING: the 2022 detention is stated in brief factual form from the public record — the U.S. government's 'wrongfully detained' designation is attributed to U.S. officials, the sentence and the December 8, 2022 exchange for Viktor Bout are stated as fact, and no editorial characterization is added, per the packet brief. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Griner's record is two stories the archive must hold together — a decade of on-court dominance in Phoenix, and a detention that made a WNBA player's movement through the world front-page diplomatic news.
Sources
- Wikipedia. "Brittney Griner." Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)
- "Brittney Griner." celebritynetworth.com. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)
- Athlon Sports. "Brittney Griner Personal News." July 31, 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)
Photograph · rights-cleared record, CultureTechLens Photo Rights Log
Brittney Griner with the Phoenix Mercury, July 14, 2019
Brittney Griner with the Phoenix Mercury, July 14, 2019 — Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source: CultureTechLens · view at source
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Record CTL-E-7077 · Combined Graph record U-07949 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
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Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Brittney Griner (CTL-E-7077).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-7077/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Brittney Griner (CTL-E-7077) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-7077/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Brittney Griner (CTL-E-7077).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-7077/
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