Paige Bueckers used Dallas Wings media day on Monday to confront the question hovering around her and Azzi Fudd: how much of their relationship belongs in public, and how much does not. Bueckers said their personal life is “nobody’s business but our own,” and that what they choose to share is entirely up to them.
She also made clear the line she wants drawn around the basketball. Bueckers said she and Fudd have “always been the utmost professional” and have never let anything off the court spill onto it. “Me and Azzi are not new to this,” she said. “We’ve been doing this for a long time. We have countless reps at it.”
The exchange came after the Wings selected Fudd with the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft earlier this month, putting one of the league’s most closely watched new players in the same organization as Bueckers. Bueckers publicly announced her relationship with Fudd last summer, and the renewed attention followed immediately after the draft.
Bueckers said Monday would be the only time she addresses the relationship publicly. If asked again, she said, she would steer the conversation back to her statement or to one of her teammates. A Wings media relations staffer also said players do not comment on their personal lives.
For Bueckers, the bigger point was that Fudd did not reach the top of the draft because of who she is dating. “Azzi Fudd was a No. 1 draft pick because she earned it,” Bueckers said, adding that it had “nothing to do with me” and everything to do with Fudd’s identity as a player and person, her resilience, her strength and her career-best year at UConn. She said Fudd should be celebrated on her own merits.
That year backed up the praise. Fudd averaged 17.3 points per game for the Huskies and shot 45 percent from 3-point range. Bueckers and Fudd were teammates at UConn and won a national championship in 2025, but their connection runs back further than college. They met years earlier at USA Basketball’s U16 national team camp during their high school days.
The privacy line may hold, but the basketball overlap will keep the story alive. Romantic partners have played on the same WNBA team before, and Bueckers and Fudd already know how to share a court after years together at UConn. What happens next will be measured less by the relationship than by whether the Wings can turn all that familiarity into wins.
