After spending 10 months in a Russian prison, Britney Griner is making her long-awaited return to the basketball court. Over the past decade, the WNBA superstar has faced a significant pay cut as part of his newly signed one-year contract with Griner’s team Phoenix his Mercury.
Business Insider reported that Griner’s $165,100 contract is down 32% from last season’s offer, but he accepted it to re-sign the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer. Diana Taurasi.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time WNBA All-Star, came close to the highest possible salary in three seasons before he was arrested in Russia for possession of less than a gram of cannabis oil last February. rice field. She also qualified for the $234,936 Supermax this season.
WNBA players accept less pay to build better teams
Unfortunately, Griner isn’t the only one taking pay cuts to create so-called “superteams.”
Just Women’s Sports is where other professional basketball players, including valuable free agents, Breanna Stewart Received “substantially less” money from the New York Liberty to build the superteam.
Despite salary cuts, the WNBA’s league salary cap is only $17 million this year, while the NBA’s league cap is $134 million. The WNBA is striving for equal pay for men, and although some progress has been made, there is still a long way to go.
This is why WNBA players went to Russia during the offseason: Huge paychecks
Griner reportedly earned $1 million a year as a player for Russia’s UMMC Yekaterinburg. Taurasi also played for the same Russian team at the same salary, but quit in 2017.
Greiner was sixth on the player salary list. His minimum wage WNBA player salary is $60,471.
compare them Earnings Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry leads the way with annual salaries of over $45 million. His closest NBA player to Griner and Taurasi in salary is Malik his Fitz of the Boston Celtics, where he ranks 488th on the NBA list. This is Fitz’s first season in the NBA, with Griner being in his WNBA for his 10th year and Taurasi being in his 19th.
So we still have a long way to go to achieve marginal pay equity.
The Phoenix Mercury season kicks off on May 19 against the Los Angeles Sparks. Fans will no doubt celebrate Griner’s return to the court and hope that the birth of a strong “superteam” signals a bright future for women’s basketball.
Photo: Twitter @PhoenixMercury