Dallas Wings 2026 No.1 overall pick Azzi Fudd poses for photos during the team’s media day at College Park Center, Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington.
Elías Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News
Azzi Fudd said growing up she didn’t naturally gravitate toward basketball.
Her parents, former basketball players-turned coaches, signed her up for activities such as soccer, tennis, ballet and tap dance in hopes that she would find her passion. But nothing stuck.
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“At first, I was like ‘I don’t want to play basketball. I see how you guys yell at your players. I don’t want to get yelled at,’” Fudd told The Dallas Morning News after a recent practice in Arlington.
But the sport chose the Dallas Wings guard, helping her make friends, open up and eventually become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA draft.
Related: Azzi Fudd, Paige Bueckers ushering in star-studded era for Dallas Wings and WNBA
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One of the most visible players in women’s basketball, Fudd distinguished herself as a 3-point shooting threat and staunch defender during her time at UConn.
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In 2025, she won a national championship with the Huskies alongside fellow UConn product and current Wings teammate Paige Bueckers. Fudd earned Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four honors for her performance, capping her first season back after tearing her ACL and medial meniscus in her right knee in November 2023.
Fudd joined the Wings, who will host the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday for their sold-out home opener at College Park Center, after an All-American season. She averaged 17.3 points on 48.1% shooting, 2.6 rebounds and 3.1 assists for the 38-1 Huskies, who finished the 2025-26 season in the Final Four.
Tim Fudd, her father, said hearing his daughter’s name called on draft night is something he hopes he’ll never forget.
“It was extremely emotional,” he told The News. “I don’t think I’ve cried that many happy tears in my life.”
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Rising star
Fudd, named after former WNBA player and Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Azzi, grew up in a basketball family as the daughter of two former professional hoopsters-turned coaches. The D.C.-area native spent early years in the gym, which doubled as her playground.
“It was basketball all day every day,” Fudd told The News.
She and her parents realized her talent for hoops well before she became the nation’s No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2021.
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Tall for her age, Fudd had always played up two years. In middle school, her parents sat her down.
“’You know you’re actually really good,’” Fudd recalled her parents saying.
Related: Who is Azzi Fudd? 5 things to know about the new Dallas Wings guard
Tim Fudd, who played at American University and later as a professional in Europe, said he saw Azzi’s potential as early as third grade.
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“She was always the youngest kid on her team, but she functioned as one of the smartest kids on the team,” Tim said. “She was more skilled than pretty much all the fifth graders we saw in our area.”
Around that time, Azzi played in a national AAU tournament.
“When you started comparing the best kids in the event nationally from across the country, she was one of the people who stood out,” Tim said. “And she was two years younger than everyone in the room.”
Azzi continued to rise during her time at St. John’s College High School in D.C. There she was a McDonald’s All-American and the first sophomore to be named Gatorade National Player of the Year after averaging 26.3 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game in 2018-19.
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Along with leading her team to a 35-1 record in 2018-19 and winning the District of Columbia State Athletic Association tournament title, Fudd won three gold medals for Team USA at the youth international level from 2017-21. Two of those medals she won alongside Bueckers.
Related: ‘A natural fit’: Wings fans share their reactions to Dallas’ Azzi Fudd selection in WNBA draft
Fudd tore the ACL and MCL in her right knee in April 2019 after her sophomore season, marking her first of two major knee injuries.
“At some point, that seed of doubt definitely creeps in,” Fudd said, reflecting on her injuries. “Will I get back to the level I was playing at? Can I trust my body? … Will I even be good enough to continue?”
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Fudd said she’s proud of herself for overcoming those obstacles.
“I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do that without my family, without my teammates, all of the trainers and staff around me that helped push me every single day.
“Because it’s hard,” she said, “and it’s not a process you can do alone.”
New beginnings in Dallas
There was no consensus No. 1 pick in 2026, but Wings general manager Curt Miller and new coach Jose Fernandez have emphasized Fudd was their choice from the start.
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Dallas Wings guard Azzi Fudd, center, the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA basketball draft, poses with head coach Jose Fernandez, right and general manager Curt Miller during an introductory press conference at Hyatt Regency Dallas, on April 16, 2026.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News
“We traveled all over the world watching this incredible draft class. But it all came back, always, to Azzi,” Miller said at Fudd’s introductory news conference on April 16. “Words that we heard over and over again in the investigation of her were: ‘a winner,’ ‘a competitor,’ ‘a hard worker.’”
Related: What made Azzi Fudd the right pick for Dallas Wings? Let the team’s leadership explain
Fudd, who came off the bench and scored three points on two shooting attempts in the Wings’ season-opening win over the Indiana Fever on Saturday, is still adjusting to the WNBA on a star-studded team that includes Bueckers, All-Star guard Arike Ogunbowale and key free agency pick-ups Alanna Smith, Jessica Shepard and Odyssey Sims.
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“It’s her first year in the league. We’ve got five really talented backcourt players,” Fernandez said in his postgame news conference of what he expects from Fudd coming off the bench.
The players he named as being part of that group included Fudd, who Fernandez said after practice in Arlington on Monday is capable of joining the starting lineup.
Related: Azzi Fudd comes off the bench in Wings’ season-opening win, a rarity for a No. 1 overall pick
The coach has praised her abilities and so have teammates.
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“She just affects the game in so many different ways,” Bueckers said after practice in Arlington recently. “Everybody talks about her shooting ability, but it’s her ability to slash, to cut, her IQ. Defensively, she disrupts a lot of stuff.”
Ogunbowale said at a practice leading up to the season opener that Fudd’s presence enhances the team.
“Having a sharpshooter like Azzi is lethal,” Ogunbowale said. “She’s one of the best shooters I’ve ever seen, honestly.”
Coming into her own
Fudd didn’t know she would become the highest-paid rookie in WNBA history with a $500,000 salary or one of the biggest stars in women’s basketball, which has boomed over the last several years.
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Beloved by fans and nicknamed “the People’s Princess,” she boasts a large sponsorship portfolio that includes Celsius, Geico, Jordan Brand and Paula’s Choice and serves as co-host of the podcast “Fudd Around and Find Out.”
“It’s my chance to share what I want to share and my point of view,” Fudd said of her podcast.
Her foray into the fashion world has been part of Fudd’s metamorphosis, which has included trips to New York Fashion Week.
Stylist Sydnee Paige connected with Fudd last July and said the basketball star was shy at their first fitting.
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“She’s evolved so much,” Paige told The News. “She’s really starting to understand what she likes and what she doesn’t like … She’s getting more comfortable in her skin.”
Related: Wings No. 1 pick Azzi Fudd’s D-FW initiation continues with first pitch at Rangers-Yankees
Katie Fudd, her mother and former North Carolina State and Georgetown standout who was taken in the 2001 WNBA draft, has noticed a similar transformation.
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“Everyone goes through the [questions of]: Am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Am I smart enough? Am I enough?,” Katie told The News. “She knows she’s enough. She knows that what she does on and off the court is enough. Whether she has a great game or bad game, that’s not going to decide who she is.”
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Katie said she’s proud of her daughter, who she described as “quirkily her,” despite appearing in commercials, landing magazine covers and playing basketball on the biggest stage.
“She’s deep down this humble, quiet kid,” Katie said. “She hasn’t changed. She hasn’t adjusted to be this quote unquote superstar.”