Jonquel Jones Details ‘Unprecedented’ Experience In Russia

For Jonquel Jones, the 2022 WNBA season is bound to more peaceful than the preceding offseason.

The Connecticut Sun superstar told ESPN’s Alexa Philippou on Wednesday all about the hectic offseason she just experienced. Jones had been playing for Russian Women’s Basketball Premier League powerhouse UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason when the country invaded neighboring Ukraine in late February. Although Jones hastily fled Russia shortly after the outbreak of war, she says she never felt unsafe in the region because the team kept her and other players insulated from the country at-large.

“We’re really in a bubble in a sense,” Jones said. “But I never questioned my safety. Even when I lived in China, when I lived in Korea, I never felt like I wasn’t safe. So the war was the first time I really felt like, ‘Wow, like this is a new situation, unprecedented type of situation.'”

Jones landed in Turkey on March 2. She later traveled to her native Bahamas and Atlanta, where she was able to spend an extended period of time with friends and families in a welcome development.

Although she hopes WNBA teams one day will pay players enough that they don’t have to work overseas during the offseason, the 28-year-old reigning MVP doesn’t expect to enjoy that lifestyle during her career.

“I’m going to have to deal with it,” Jones said. “Because I feel like while the league is making the right and necessary strides to pay us more and ensure that if we don’t want to go overseas, we don’t have to, I just feel like in my situation, the money is not comparable. I have to think about the financial status of my family and everybody else, and also the opportunities that I’m leaving if I don’t go so.

“I would say probably when I’m leaving the league, players probably won’t have to do it, players of my caliber who are going to make that top dollar overseas, they’ll have the options to stay here and make the same money,” Jones said. “But I don’t think I’ll see it in my career. I hope so.”

Jones and her Sun teammates will begin their 2022 WNBA regular season slate May 6 at
Barclays Center when they visit the New York Liberty.