Phoenix Mercury ready to rise after tumultuous off-season

She stands tall on the basketball court but has struggled in recent days off of the court. Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner even had to go to a court with her attorney after her then-fiancée Glory Johnson accused her of domestic violence.

The domestic violence charges were the beginning of a few weeks of whirling in and out of the news for the pair. After that incident, the couple turned heads by announcing that they had been married. On the heels of that shocker came another. And then another.

After the domestic violence incident made headlines, and the wedding announcement made jaws drop, days later Johnson gave the world another eye-popping revelation: she is pregnant by in vitro fertilization.

The pair weren’t done making tabloid headlines, though. Hard on the heels of the pregnancy announcement on Instagram came yet another startling news-blast: Griner and Johnson were breaking up.

Griner was seeking an annulment from her just-barely-married and newly pregnant spouse.

Now Griner is ready to make news of another sort: on the basketball court with her Mercury teammates. After her domestic violence arrest, she had served a seven-game suspension. For her, the season really begins this weekend in Minneapolis against the Lynx.

“I’m ready to go,” she told the Associated Press. “I definitely have been watching and I have been doing everything off the court to be on the court.”

After pleading guilty to disorderly conduct, Griner was ordered into 26 weeks of counseling. When she completes it, “the charges will be dropped,” the AP says.

That is an example of the kind of favorable outcome possible when a person charged with domestic violence gets legal help from an experienced defense attorney.