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Bueckers, the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year, said the Wings drafting Fudd had nothing to do with her. After winning a title with Bueckers, Fudd’s UConn team lost to South Carolina in the Final Four this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and Azzi have always been the utmost professionals,\u201d Bueckers said. \u201cWe\u2019ve always conducted ourselves as such. And we\u2019ve never let anything that happens off the court carry onto the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Fudd met with reporters about two hours before Bueckers did on media day and wasn’t asked about the relationship.<\/p>\n
Bueckers was a three-time Associated Press All-American at UConn, and Fudd joined that list last season. They were together for three seasons with the Huskies.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and Azzi are not new to this,\u201d Bueckers said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this for a long time. We have countless reps at it. We have a lot of experience with it. So we will continue to use that experience to show up and be professionals, great teammates, great leaders, the hardest workers and continue to show up and do our job and help the Dallas Wings win basketball games.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Fudd was introduced, Wings general manager Curt Miller said the club didn’t hesitate on a decision that added to an already elite backcourt with Bueckers and four-time All-Star Arike Ogunbowale.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the moment we secured the No. 1 pick, we set out on a plan to be deliberate, thorough, with intention, on evaluating where we got to ultimately in picking Azzi Fudd,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe traveled all over the world watching this incredible draft class, but it all came back always to Azzi.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Bueckers was a runaway winner for the rookie award after averaging 19.2 points, 5.4 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game. But the Wings tied for last place in the WNBA, and their 34 losses were twice as many as Bueckers experienced in four seasons combined at UConn. It was the 13th losing record in the past 16 seasons for the franchise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way she goes about things, she always sees it as a challenge, as an opportunity to grow,\u201d Fudd said earlier this month. \u201cSo last year it was, she\u2019s not used to losing, but how can she take those losses, continue to grow, continue to be a great leader, make everyone around her better. So if I can adopt anything from her, that\u2019s definitely one of the things that I want to kind of use for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings’ Azzi Fudd talks to reporters during the team’s WNBA basketball media day Monday, April 27, 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,33397,23681,202,14446,196,42094,87629,942,100069],"class_list":["post-268672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-curt-miller","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40778-ap-connecticut-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-wings-uconn-paige-bueckers-azzi-fudd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}