Superstar LeBron James has criticized the US for its handling of the case of basketball player Brittney Griner, who was jailed in Russia.
“How can she feel like America is behind her now?” James said in a trailer for his talk show The Shop: Uninterrupted: “I would be like, ‘Do I even want to go back to America?'”. The full show will appear on Friday.
James later categorized his words via Twitter: “My comment on The Shop regarding Brittney Griner was not a criticism of our beautiful country,” wrote the 37-year-old. “I was just saying how she probably feels emotionally, together with so many other emotions and thoughts – in this cage she’s been in for over 100 days. Long story short: #BringHerHome. (Bring her home/ed.)”
Griner in prison in Russia
Griner was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on February 17 and has since become a political pawn, not least because of the growing tensions between Washington and Moscow due to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The athlete is accused of having vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage. Griner faces a sentence of up to ten years in prison.
In the meantime, Griner had pleaded guilty in court. However, the two-time Olympic champion insisted that she did not intentionally violate Russian laws. Last week, US President Biden assured that he would work for her “as soon as possible release”. Griner was “wrongly detained under unbearable circumstances,” the Washington statement said.
The WNBA professional league had previously criticized the behavior of the US government. Vanessa Nygaard, Griners coach at the Phoenix Mercury, said last week, “If it were LeBron, he would be home, right? It’s a statement of the worth of women. It’s a statement of the worth of a black person . It’s a statement of the worth of a gay person. All those things. We know that and that’s what hurts a little bit more.”