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'That would be sexy,' Griner replies, grinning, 'but I don't think I'm ready for that.' 'Would you like this with no shirt underneath, with nipples out?' she asks matter-of-factly. Her agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, pulls out a Lanvin sleeveless tee with mesh sides as a racier alternative.

Griner quickly gravitates to a burgundy sleeveless T-shirt by Robert Geller and a black Saint Laurent sweatshirt top with cutoff sleeves and a narrow silver chain sewn across the yoke. And it's edgier.' (The last time she wore a dress, Griner tells me, was at her mother's request, for her high school graduation. 'With Ellen, we choose women's clothes and add menswear touches,' says Richards' assistant, when asked to compare dressing the two women. The event is three days away, and she needs something to wear with the gorgeous black suit that her stylist, Kellen Richards-who's also Ellen DeGeneres' fashion adviser-had custom made for her. But backstage at Conan, she's addressing another wardrobe concern: what to wear to the ESPYs, ESPN's annual awards show. Her outfit for her imminent television appearance was settled on a while ago: a blue-and-white seersucker suit with one of her signature bow ties.

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What attracted the attention of Conan, and the rest of the country, is Griner's absolute dominance as a college player and her selection as the WNBA's number one draft pick this spring-in her first pro game, for the Phoenix Mercury, she dunked twice, setting a league record-not to mention the suggestion by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban that Griner should try out for his team. In her dressing room at Conan O'Brien's late-night show, the 6'8' women's-basketball wunderkind Brittney Griner is flipping through a rolling rack of men's shirts with one of her very large hands-they're bigger than LeBron James'-while also keeping her eyes on the iPhone she's palming in the other.

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