From WNYC Studios, it's Brian Lair, a daily politics podcast. It's Friday, July 8th.

We turn to the plight of WNBA superstar Brittany Greiner, who has been detained in Russia

since February 17th on drug smuggling

charges. She allegedly had two cannabis-derived vape cartridges in her luggage when she entered

that country, an amount that, let's face it, in most states in the U.S. would be considered

merely for personal use, but she faces up to 10 years in prison.

And in a major development, yesterday during the second hearing in her trial, Griner pleaded guilty.

Here's a clip of her plea before the judge with her Russian interpreter.

I would like to plead guilty on the charges.

I could be a root for opinion, but I had no intention on breaking any Russian law.

So the good news there is that some analysts are saying the guilty plea may be a route to get

and grind a release sooner in some kind of prisoner exchange. He does seem like a political

prisoner to many Americans paying attention to this. Joining me now, Terry Jackson,

executive director of the Women's National Basketball Players Association, that's the union for the WNBA players,

and Kavitha Davidson, sportswriter and correspondent on HBO's Real Sports with Brian Gumbull.

Terry, welcome to WNYC, and Kavitha, welcome back.

Thank you.

Terry, I see you're a lawyer and have been a law professor before becoming the WNBA Players Union rep.

How do you understand yesterday's guilty plea?

You know, I've been saying for a while that Russia's process is its own, and it's not one that we can compare to our own legal system.

And so we can't look at it and try to square it that way.

I'm hopeful that this keeps the Russian process moving forward, hopeful to see a resolution that gets us to a point where our government can do all that it can to get BG home.

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