Griner Returns to Phoenix and Can Still See Taurasi on the Court

Brittney Griner walked into Footprint Center on Friday and the place still felt like hers. Not in a weird way. More like the way you feel when you go back to a house you once lived in and everything is exactly where you left it in your memory.

This was only Griner’s second trip back to Phoenix since leaving the Mercury. But she wasn’t bitter about any of it. The split wasn’t about hard feelings. It was about a different vision for her career. A chance to figure out what came next after more than a decade in one place. She played for Atlanta first, then landed with the Connecticut Sun in 2026 — a team that’s set to move to Houston in 2027.

You don’t spend that long somewhere without leaving a mark. Griner knows that. She saw it in the way security greeted her, the way fans still called out her name, the way the opposing players looked at her like she was still the most dominant presence in the building.

“I basically played my whole career here,” she said before the game. “It’s like being in a house that you sold. You got so many memories there, so it’s just nice to drive by and go back and see it. I look around, and I see places on the court where it’s like, ‘I remember getting Dee (Diana Taurasi) a shot right there.’”

That kind of visual memory doesn’t fade. Griner and Taurasi won a championship together. They made the Mercury a perennial threat. And even now, with Griner in a different uniform, the connection between those two is still a big part of her story.

More Than a Stat Sheet

Griner is the WNBA’s all-time leader in blocked shots. She was Rookie of the Year in 2013. Multiple All-Star nods. Multiple All-WNBA selections. She’s done just about everything you can do in this league. But the resume stuff only tells part of it.

The impact runs deeper than numbers. Before the game, Griner mentioned that fans still send her letters — the same kind they sent her when she first broke into the league more than a decade ago. That’s not the kind of thing that happens if you’re just another player. That’s legacy stuff.

Friday’s game wasn’t just a homecoming. It was a chance for Griner to remind everyone that even on a different team, she’s still the same player who made the Mercury a destination franchise. And she looked ready to put on a show.