Bueckers hopes focus can be on Fudd as ‘a basketball player’
wings star Paige Bueckers addressed the thrill surrounding her relationship with teammate Azzi Fudd in a gap assertion 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.”
Bueckers went public together with her relationship with Fudd in July 2025, though the 2 haven’t commented on it since final summer season. Bueckers and Fudd, each No. 1 recruits out of highschool, have been teammates at UConn for 4 years, gained a nationwide title collectively in 2025 and have been shut pals since their highschool days, when in addition they performed along with USA Basketball.
“Me and Azzi have always been the ultimate professional,” stated Bueckers, who was chosen at No. 1 by Dallas final yr 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 usually not new to this. We’ve been doing this for a very long time. We have numerous reps at it. We have a number of expertise with it, so we are going to proceed to make use of that have to point out up and be professionals, nice teammates, nice leaders, the toughest staff, and proceed to point out up and do our job and assist the Dallas Wings win basketball video games.”
Bueckers said she plans to address her relationship with Fudd only this one time and that if they continue to get asked about it, they will refer to this answer or deflect and talk about teammates.
“Azzi Fudd was a No. 1 draft decide as a result of she earned it, and he or she had nothing to do with me and all the pieces to do with who she is as a human being, who she is a basketball participant, her resilience, her energy and her career-best yr at UConn,” Bueckers continued. “So, Azzi is her personal nice particular person particular person, and he or she ought to be celebrated as such.”
The Wings selected Fudd No. 1 in this month’s college draft following their first-team All-American campaign for the Huskies. She was asked about her relationship with Bueckers during her introductory news conference April 16 before Wings PR intervened to say the team would not have players comment on their personal lives.
In an interview with Dallas’ ABC affiliate, WFAA, Fudd later described being reunited with Bueckers as, “So particular. Here I’m, no management in the place I get drafted, and I get to play with my finest good friend once more. So it truly is particular,” 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 all the time got here again 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.
“Words that we heard over and over within the investigation of her was, a winner, a competitor, a tough employee,” Miller said about Fudd. “Obviously the ability set speaks for itself, an unimaginable shooter — most likely one of many quickest releases within the sport right this moment, a defend with a number of competitiveness and toughness, and, in the end, all of the intangibles that associate with Azzi within the locker room — being unselfish, being an unimaginable teammate, being a high-basketball-IQ participant. [It] all pointed us via a really deliberate and thorough course of again to Azzi Fudd.”
The Wings kick off their season May 9 towards the Indiana Fever in a matchup between the previous 4 No. 1 picks.
