Brittney Griner And Glory Johnson Have Wed

Two of the brightest young talents in women's basketball have tied the knot, and it's making news — WNBA stars Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson got married on Friday, as evidenced by a beautiful wedding-day photo Johnson posted to her Instagram account.

Griner and Johnson are both 24 years old, integral players for the Mercury Phoenix and Tulsa Shock respectively, and they announced their engagement back in August 2014. It made headlines at the time, and not just because it was news of two elite athletes in the same sport getting together — as the Washington Post's Soraya Nadia McDonald wrote after word of their engagement went public, the WNBA's experienced some past awkwardness relating to its lesbian players and fanbase, so having such a high-profile duo get engaged was a pretty huge deal.

To say nothing of the fact that they're both top competitors in the same league, and will thus square off on the court as a married couple. The Tulsa Shock and Phoenix Mercury are scheduled to play five games against each other next season, the first of which is on July 2, and there's an undeniable intrigue that kind of matchup generates. At this moment in sport history, at least, it seems impossible to imagine a similar situation in a major men's sports league, with so few active male athletes even willing to be openly gay during their playing careers.

The pair were reportedly wed at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort in Phoenix, which I'm sure comes as a sore spot to all the Tulsa fans out there. Griner's Mercury are the reigning champions of the WNBA, having beaten the Chicago Sky at the end of last season to secure the title, while Johnson's Shock finished last in the same divison.

Whether this balance of power holds for next season is uncertain, however, since Mercury superstar Diana Tauarasi is sitting out the 2015 season — a much stouter challenge for Griner, in other words, and perhaps an opportunity for Johnson and the Shock to make some headway.

It's not as though the wedding news is free from complication, however, and that bears mentioning. Both Johnson and Griner were arrested last month on assault and disorderly conduct allegations, and according to the New York Daily News, Griner has 26 weeks of domestic violence counseling ahead of her. Another Instagram the pair posted in the aftermath of the incident included an apology.