Mercury's Brittney Griner Out for Start of WNBA Season with Toe Injury; Timeline TBD

The Phoenix Mercury announced Monday that center Brittney Griner will miss the start of the WNBA season after suffering a toe fracture on her left foot.

She will be reevaluated in the "coming weeks."

The Mercury open the 2024 WNBA season on the road Tuesday against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces (10 p.m. ET).

The 33-year-old Griner missed the entire 2022 season while being unjustly detained in Russia, but played well upon her release and return to the United States in 2023, averaging 17.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game.

It was all the more impressive considering Griner struggled to sleep for a year after her release, including throughout all of last season, as she told ESPN's T.J. Quinn.

"It was hell sleeping last year. I would just be up, mind racing," she said. "Can't go to sleep, or I go to sleep, wake up, and then I'm up all night. Go right into practice, trying to push through physically, being able to see how behind I was because I missed so much, and I thought I was at a place of, like, oh, I'm not an athlete now. This year, I definitely feel [like an athlete]. Like, I'm moving the way I remember I used to move."

Unfortunately, her toe fracture will keep her sidelined to start the season.

As for the Mercury, the team didn't fare so well last season, finishing a league-worst 9-31 while missing the playoffs for the first time since 2012.

Normally, that would have potentially meant the chance to draft Caitlin Clark, but the Mercury owed their pick to the Chicago Sky (and the Indiana Fever won the draft lottery anyway). But the team added Natasha Cloud and Kahleah Copper to the inside-out duo of Griner and Diana Taurasi alongside hiring a new head coach in Nate Tibbetts and general manager in Nick U'Ren.

The 2024 campaign was supposed to be a bounce-back season for the Mercury, and it might be yet. But Griner's injury will tax a frontcourt that was already lacking depth.