Brittney Griner Says 'It's a Goal of Mine' to Play for Team USA at 2028 LA Olympics

Atlanta Dream center Brittney Griner has her eyes set on representing Team USA for her fourth Olympics during the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

"It's a goal of mine," Griner told ESPN's Ramona Shelburne. "It hasn't been in the U.S. for a while now, so I think to be able to play at the Olympics in your home country would be amazing. My parents have never been to the Olympics.

"So I'm going to strive for it and try to do what I need to do so I can get that call-up or at least be at the camp and help out the ones that will go, whatever it's going to be."

Griner, who played her first 11 WNBA seasons with the Phoenix Mercury, will make her Dream debut on the road Friday against the Washington Mystics.

She has won three Olympic gold medals as a member of Team USA during the 2016 Rio Olympics, the 2020 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The 2024 Games marked Griner's first international tournament since she missed the entirety of the 2022 WNBA season while being detained for more than nine months in Russia.

She returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange in December 2022.

“My country fought for me to get back and I was able to bring home gold for my country,” Griner said after the Paris Olympics victory, per Thuc Nhi Nguyen of the Los Angeles Times. “There’s just no greater feeling being here on the highest stage that you can be on.”

She has also stated that she has no intention of closing out her playing career in the near future. She told reporters after the Mercury's elimination from the 2024 playoffs that she was "nowhere near retiring."

Griner will be 37 when the next Summer Olympics begin in Los Angeles in July 2028.

The majority of the women's roster for the 2024 Paris Olympics was comprised of players age 30 or older, but Team USA demographics could change over the next three years.

Outside of Mercury legend Diana Taurasi, who retired from the WNBA after 20 seasons in February, Griner and the rest of the returning veterans will need to compete with an incoming wave of new stars— potentially including young stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers as well as projected future WNBAers like JuJu Watkins—to keep their roster spots in 2028.