There was a 42-second silence of solidarity before the match<\/a> with Mercury and the Sun linking arms in the center court and chants of “Bring her home!” of the crowd Tons of employees wore the black and orange BG jerseys, including Sun coach Curt Miller.<\/span><\/p>\nThe paradox of securing Griner’s release is that the more agitation and public support there is, the more the Russian government feels it has a valuable piece to extract concessions from. His status quo both hurts and helps.<\/span><\/p>\nHope to replace heartbreak would be a welcome change for WNBA players, especially her Mercury teammates. The team has floundered without Griner, entering Saturday in ninth place in the 12-team league, and the cost of repeating its plight at every WNBA site became apparent.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWe come here and we’re still supposed to play this [expletive] game,” Diggins-Smith said. “No one wanted to play today. How to approach the game and approach the court with a clear mind and the whole group is crying before the game?<\/span><\/p>\n“[It\u2019s] because you try to honor her, and you try to go out and still play hard for her.”<\/span><\/p>\nThe normalcy of basketball as a refuge and refuge has been a casualty of this crisis. Scroll through the biographies of WNBA players and you’ll find that playing overseas is common as players supplement their income.<\/span><\/p>\nCommissioner Cathy Engelbert is working to create higher salaries. Top players can earn league marketing deals worth $250,000 and team marketing deals worth $100,000. Three players have marketing agreements with the league and 29 have team marketing agreements. The top base salary in the WNBA is $228,000.<\/span><\/p>\nStill, according to WNBA research, about 1 percent of corporate spending goes to women’s sports and less than 5 percent of media coverage.<\/span><\/p>\nSo the way to support Griner is to support the WNBA.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Russian team Griner played for was bathed in gold, paying players over a million dollars. Jones, who played at UMMC Ekaterinburg the previous two seasons, said he never thought anything like Griner’s ordeal was possible.<\/span><\/p>\n“Never,” she said. “My experiences there have been very good. Our team was top notch. They treated us like the professionals we are. We loved going there because of it. We always felt safe there.”<\/span><\/p>\nFor those who remain adamant that Griner is to blame for her imprisonment, Jones said the Russian team never provided any advice or guidance. He said it’s common for players to take CBD.<\/span><\/p>\n“After everything with BG, we looked things up online and found out that CBD was even illegal in Russia,” Jones said. “This is something we all have in our bags that we use to help our bodies compete, and it has no effect on you in any other way. It’s just trying to make your body feel good [in recovery]. The team didn’t tell us anything. We tried to do our thing and be respectful of what was going on there.”<\/span><\/p>\nThe players know he could easily have been one of them in Griner’s shoes.<\/span><\/p>\nSometimes it’s the fans who need our support. Such is the case with the WNBA players Griner left behind.<\/span><\/p>\nChristopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper<\/a>.<\/p>\n