{"id":257241,"date":"2026-04-19T20:59:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/257241\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T20:59:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:59:24","slug":"houston-native-brittney-griner-signed-with-sun-to-go-home-but-wont-look-past-farewell-year-in-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/257241\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston native Brittney Griner signed with Sun to go home, but won\u2019t look past farewell year in Connecticut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brittney Griner understood the significance of the Connecticut Sun\u2019s season when she signed a one-year deal with the team<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

For one season \u2014 and one season only \u2014 the 10-time All-Star, two-time scoring champion, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and 2014 WNBA champion will be the face of the franchise as it devotes the summer to saying its goodbyes to the region after 24 years.<\/p>\n

Pending league approval, the Sun will relocate to Houston in 2027<\/a>. With that in mind, Griner said Friday at her introductory press conference that she understood the weight of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely going to be an emotional season,\u201d Griner said. \u201cBasketball is rich, and that\u2019s how you know it is. If it was, \u2018Oh, they\u2019re leaving,\u2019 and it was whatever, then you would know that you didn\u2019t build something sustainable.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething was built here that was rich and done the right way, and fans \u2014 they don\u2019t want to see it go. And I can respect that. And that\u2019s why we\u2019re going to do the best we can to give them an amazing performance this season and highlight them, highlight the fans, highlight the players who came before us and made it possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Griner signed her deal knowing what was on the horizon. The Houston native created an early runway to play for a revived version of the Houston Comets. Still, Griner made it clear that her focus is on this season with the Sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I\u2019m here. We\u2019re in Connecticut, so we\u2019re going to celebrate being here in Connecticut. Celebrate what came before us and close that out as well,\u201d Griner said. \u201cI know there\u2019s a move coming, but my main focus is right now and making this season the best for the fans. I plan on handling my business and doing what I need to do here \u2014 so looking ahead and being hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griner is the centerpiece of a training camp roster with eight rookies and 13 players with three years of experience or less. Among them is former Harvard star Harmoni Turner, who was taken by Las Vegas in the third round (No. 35) in last year\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n

The Sun also brought in six-year veteran and Dorchester native Shey Peddy, who was recently named to the Globe\u2019s all-time All-Scholastic team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Griner, whose on-court resume is Hall-of-Fame shoo-in worthy, said she wants to share as much of her experience as she can with the young group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the experience I can bring \u2014 from being on teams that have won and teams that have struggled a little \u2014 I feel like I\u2019ve seen it,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve been to the Finals, made deep playoff runs, won championships, and I think everything you can pour into the younger players is just going to make them better, make us better, make our organization better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julian Benbow can be reached at julian.benbow@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brittney Griner understood the significance of the Connecticut Sun\u2019s season when she signed a one-year deal with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-257241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-houston-headlines","10":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}