Paige Bueckers addresses relationship with Azzi Fudd (0:51)Paige Bueckers says that her relationship with teammate Azzi Fudd is nobody’s business and that what they choose to share is up to them. (0:51)
Alexa PhilippouApr 27, 2026, 03:44 PM ETCloseCovers women’s college basketball and the WNBA Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati EnquirerFollow on XMultiple Authors
Bueckers went public with her relationship with Fudd in July 2025, though the two have not commented on it since last summer. Bueckers and Fudd, both No. 1 recruits out of high school, were teammates at UConn for four years, won a national title together in 2025 and have been close friends since their high school days, when they also played together with USA Basketball.
“Me and Azzi have always been the utmost professional,” said Bueckers, who was selected at No. 1 by Dallas last year and is the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year. “We’ve always conducted ourselves as such, and we’ve never let anything that happens off the court carry onto the court. That’s what we continue to do.
“Me and Azzi are not new to this. We’ve been doing this for a long time. We have countless reps at it. We have a lot of experience with it, so we will continue to use that experience to show up and be professionals, great teammates, great leaders, the hardest workers, and continue to show up and do our job and help the Dallas Wings win basketball games.”
“Azzi Fudd was a No. 1 draft pick because she earned it, and it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with who she is as a human being, who she is a basketball player, her resilience, her strength and her career-best year at UConn,” Bueckers continued. “So, Azzi is her own great individual person, and she should be celebrated as such.”
In an interview with Dallas’ ABC affiliate, WFAA, Fudd later described being reunited with Bueckers as, “So special. Here I am, no control in where I get drafted, and I get to play with my best friend again. So it really is special,” adding that they will benefit from having established chemistry in how to play with and off each other.
Wings general manager Curt Miller previously said that while evaluating this draft class all over the world, “It always came back to Azzi.” The 5-foot-11 guard averaged 17.3 points and managed a 45% clip from the 3-point arc as a senior at UConn and should provide some much-needed perimeter shooting for Dallas.
The Wings kick off their season May 9 against the Indiana Fever in a matchup between the past four No. 1 picks.
Paige Bueckers addresses relationship with Azzi Fudd (0:51)Paige Bueckers says that her relationship with teammate Azzi Fudd is nobody’s business and that what they choose to share is up to them. (0:51)
Paige Bueckers says that her relationship with teammate Azzi Fudd is nobody’s business and that what they choose to share is up to them. (0:51)
Wings star Paige Bueckers addressed the buzz surrounding her relationship with teammate Azzi Fudd in an opening statement at Dallas’ media day Monday, saying, “Quite frankly, I believe me and Azzi’s personal relationship is nobody’s business but our own, and what we choose to share is completely up to us.”
Alexa PhilippouApr 27, 2026, 03:44 PM ETCloseCovers women’s college basketball and the WNBA Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati EnquirerFollow on XMultiple Authors
CloseCovers women’s college basketball and the WNBA Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati EnquirerFollow on X