Brittney Griner Wears a Size 17 in Men’s Shoes: ‘I Think My Feet Are Bigger Than Kareem’s’

The WNBA star is currently playing for the USA women's basketball team at the Paris Olympics.

Standing six-foot-nine, two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner wears a size 17 in men’s shoes — and thinks her feet are bigger than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s.

“Being 6-foot-8, I definitely get stares,” Griner told ESPN back in 2015. “I think my feet are bigger than Kareem’s. They are size 17 men’s. My hands are even bigger than LeBron’s. I could palm a basketball since I was a freshman in high school. For me, it’s a very tall world. Just walking around, it’s kind of like being on display at a museum, like being on display 24/7.”

Griner is currently competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics for Team USA, on a break from the WNBA season. Competing alongside teammates including A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, the team recently beat Belgium and is set to face off against Germany on Aug. 4.

Griner re-joined the WNBA to play for the Phoenix Mercury after she was freed from Russian prison in December 2022, having been arrested for traveling with cannabis oil; a number of public figures advocated for her freedom, eventually resulting in a prisoner swap with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout after Griner spent 293 days incarcerated.

Off the basketball court, Griner wears a range of footwear. She slipped on a pair of classic black low top Converse All Star sneakers when she attended her Baylor University jersey retirement ceremony in February. At the NAACP Image Awards in 2023, Griner wore a suit and black pointed patent leather boots alongside wife Cherelle Griner.

Athletes across a range of sports sometimes have larger — or smaller — than normal feet. Basketball players, of course, are known to be taller than most and thus often fall in the former category. Shaquille O’Neal, for example, wears a size 22, sizing up from his actual size 20. Four-foot-eight Simone Biles, on the other hand, wears a size 5 — which not every shoe company carries in women’s sizes.

For people on both ends of the spectrum, shopping for shoes can be difficult. Some business owners, however, are trying to make the market more inclusive. Naturalizer recently launched its Contoured Calf collection in sizes 5M-12XW, with additional options accommodating various foot widths. Black female founder Ahriana Edwards started her shoe company Vaila to cater to customers between sizes 9-14.