Paige Bueckers addresses her relationship with Azzi Fudd

Fudd and Bueckers have known each other since 2017 and have a long history of success as teammates. They had a 44-5 record at UConn when both were on the court and led the program to its first national championship in nine years in 2025. They also played together as high schoolers on the USA Basketball junior national team, bringing home gold medals from the 2018 FIBA U17 World Cup and 2017 FIBA Americas U16 Championship.

“I’m not entirely sure if this is new to media members, to social media, to new people who are watching the WNBA or women’s basketball in general, but me and Azzi are not new to this,” Bueckers said. “We’ve been doing this for a long time and have countless reps at it. We have a lot of experience with it, so we’ll continue to use that experience to show up and be professionals, great teammates, great leaders, the hardest workers. We’ll continue to show up and do our job and help the Dallas Wings win basketball games.”

Bueckers also made clear that Dallas’s decision to draft Fudd at No. 1 was unrelated to their relationship. Fudd, who was widely projected as the top pick for months leading up to the draft, had a spectacular redshirt senior season at UConn earning consensus first-team All-American honors and helping lead the Huskies to a 38-1 record and a third straight Final Four appearance. She averaged 17.3 points, 3.1 assists and 2.5 steals per game, all of which were career highs, while shooting 48.1% from the field, 44.7% on 3-pointers and 95.5% at the free throw line.

“Azzi Fudd was the No. 1 draft pick because she earned it,” Bueckers said. “It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with who she is as a human being, who she is as a basketball player, her resilience, her strength and her career-best year at UConn. Azzi is her own great individual person, and she should be celebrated as such.”

Fudd and Bueckers make their debut as pro teammates Thursday at 7 p.m. when the Wings play their first preseason game in Indianapolis against the Indiana Fever.