{"id":359610,"date":"2025-12-20T08:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T08:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359610\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T08:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T08:12:07","slug":"how-scouting-azzi-fudd-became-paige-bueckers-coaching-lesson-for-new-dallas-hc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359610\/","title":{"rendered":"How scouting Azzi Fudd became Paige Bueckers coaching lesson for new Dallas HC"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Dallas Wings<\/a> head coach Jos\u00e9 Fern\u00e1ndez has his work cut out for him<\/a> this offseason. Not only is he tasked with continuing the Wings’ rebuild into the 2026 WNBA season, but he also has to manage the on-court career growth of superstar Paige Bueckers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez has been preparing on all fronts, which includes building a bond with his current players and scouting prospective ones. In an interview<\/a> with \u201cNo Offseason: The Athletic Women’s Basketball Show\u201d podcast on Thursday, Fern\u00e1ndez revealed that a trip to UConn to evaluate top draft prospect Azzi Fudd<\/a> led him to discover details on how to best work with Bueckers.<\/p>\n

\u201c[On] one of my visits to go see a young lady that everybody\u2019s talking about, who’s a prospective draft pick,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez started.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was there for three days, watched [the UConn women’s basketball<\/a> team] practice, watched them play Ohio State, and got to spend a lot of time with [head coach Geno Auriemma<\/a>], and of course, we had conversations in regards to schemes: Paige with the ball inside pick and roll, in the slot, in the middle of the floor, when it comes off the glass, and she gets denied, and someone else brings it up and her off the ball,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great to get his perspective on things because he cares deeply about her, and he cares deeply about her success in the future,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez added.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez has already publicly discussed his plans<\/a>\u00a0to set a new winning standard for the Wings, who finished the 2025 season with a 10-34 record and in last place in the WNBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis won’t be the same old Dallas Wings, my brother,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said during his introductory press conference in early November. \u201cChange is coming, and we’re gonna win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former USF head coach was on the shortlist of candidates the Wings were considering as they conducted their search. Fern\u00e1ndez took over the lead role for USF in November 2000, just seven months after he arrived as an assistant coach, and appeared in 10 NCAA Tournaments while leading the team to 12 20-win seasons. His teams were ranked in the top 25 for a total of 79 weeks over a nine-year span.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Dallas Wings head coach Jos\u00e9 Fern\u00e1ndez has his work cut out for him this offseason. Not only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[16393,2834,37762,400,2833,99,31477,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-359610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-azzi-fudd","9":"tag-dallas-wings","10":"tag-geno-auriemma","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-paige-bueckers","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uconn-womens-basketball","15":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}