Brittney Griner on Thursday held her first news conference since being released from a Russian prison in December, by turns tearful and upbeat as she spoke of her experience and her return to professional basketball.

“I’m no stranger to hard times,” she said.

Griner, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and seven-time All-Star with the Phoenix Mercury, has returned to the WNBA team for her 10th season, picking up her American athletic career after missing the 2022 season while being incarcerated for 294 days in Russia on a drug charge.

She opened Thursday’s session with a message of thanks to those who supported her and who helped continue to bring attention to her story, as well as to her wife, team and family.

Mercury officials said the focus of the news conference should be on basketball, but the topic quickly pivoted.

“You’re going to be faced with adversities throughout your life – this was a pretty big one,” Griner said. “. . . You find a way to just grind it out. You just put your head down and keep going, just keep moving forward. You can never stand still, and that was my theme. Just never be still. Never get too focused on the now, just look forward to what’s to come.”

Griner said she was aware of the efforts, such as the “#WeAreBG” campaign, to bring her home. “Those times where I was able to see what was going on, it definitely made me a little bit more comfortable,” she said. “It made me have hope, which is a really hard thing to have, a really dangerous thing to have, because when it doesn’t work it’s so crushing.”

She advised others in her situation in Russia, such as journalist Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal, to “just keep waking up, find a little routine and stick to that routine. I know that’s what helped me. Just keep pushing. We’re not going to stop fighting and bringing awareness to everyone left behind now.”

After nearly 10 months in detainment, Griner has had to work to regain her physical conditioning ahead of the WNBA season, which begins next month. “Coming back from basically doing nothing – not having any gym – getting back into it was hard. It’s still a process. It’s the little things. . . . Being an athlete you always want to pick up where you left off.”

Griner said she has no plans to ever again play overseas, where many WNBA players compete during the league’s offseason because of the pay gap between the men’s and women’s games in the United States, unless it’s as a member of Team USA in the Olympics.

“A lot of us go over there to make an income, to support out families, to support ourselves. So I don’t knock any player that wants to go overseas and wants to make a little bit extra money,” Griner said. “But I’m hoping that our league continues to grow.”

Griner and the Mercury open their season May 19 on the road against the Los Angeles Sparks. Griner has played for Phoenix since she was the team’s No. 1 draft pick in 2013, and she re-signed with the team on a one-year deal in February.