{"id":569832,"date":"2026-03-30T02:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T02:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569832\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T02:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T02:19:18","slug":"diana-taurasis-blunt-wnba-draft-admission-is-what-dallas-fans-want-to-hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569832\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Taurasi’s blunt WNBA Draft admission is what Dallas fans want to hear"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 WNBA Draft will take place on April 13, about a week and a half after the 2026 NCAA Tournament Championship. Azzi Fudd<\/a> is heading a UConn squad that hopes to repeat their 2025 win, something the team took a big running leap toward on Sunday when they beat Notre Dame and punched their ticket to the Final Four in Phoenix. <\/p>\n

Fudd is also expected to be a high pick in this year’s draft, and plenty of mock drafts have her going as the No. 1 overall pick. That would give UConn back to back No. 1 picks (Paige Bueckers had the honor last year), and would also mean that Fudd would end up on the Dallas Wings (just like Bueckers).<\/p>\n

Drafting Fudd to the Wings is a good idea for a few big reasons, one of which is the fact that she and Bueckers played together for four years and were a bit of a seamless machine. A lot of fans are open to the prospect of bringing Fudd to Dallas \u2014 and that includes UConn graduate and WNBA legend Diana Taurasi. <\/p>\n

\u201cDallas is gonna have a tough decision to make, and it\u2019s a decision you want when you have the number one pick, and you have all this talent coming out,\u201d Taurasi said during an appearance on on NBC Sports with Natalie Esquire and Terrika Foster-Brasby. \u201cI think just from a bird\u2019s eye view, you would say Azzi is the number one pick. The synergy that she has with Paige on the court \u2014 they play great together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like a lot of people, Taurasi said that Fudd’s previously experience with Bueckers could help the Wings.<\/p>\n

Azzi Fudd is having a strong season<\/p>\n

Fudd has been enjoying a career-high kind of season so far, and her performances in the March Madness tournament are only backing that up. \u201cThe way Azzi\u2019s been playing \u2014 just dominant \u2014 she looks on the court on both ends right now,\u201d Taurasi added, a reference to how well Fudd has controlled the court this year. \u201cI would say she\u2019s probably the one pick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taurasi, who was the No. 1 overall draft pick in the 2004 WNBA Draft, also noted that players are always nervous about the draft, even if they also know they have a strong shot at being a high pick. The WNBA is the best professional league in the world, and having the chance to play professional basketball is a huge honor.<\/p>\n

Fudd will be a strong asset to any WNBA team she ends up on, but it’s difficult to deny that reuniting her with Bueckers would be special \u2014 and that’s an exciting thing for Wings fans<\/a> to start thinking about. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 WNBA Draft will take place on April 13, about a week and a half after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-569832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}