{"id":693268,"date":"2026-06-09T10:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693268\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T10:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:02:09","slug":"uconns-azzi-fudd-vs-olivia-miles-in-wnba-rookie-of-the-year-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693268\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn’s Azzi Fudd vs Olivia Miles in WNBA Rookie of the Year race"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA’s top-performing rookies will face off Tuesday evening, as former UConn women’s basketball<\/a> star\u00a0Azzi Fudd<\/a> and the Dallas Wings head to Minnesota for a matchup with Olivia Miles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fudd was drafted No. 1 overall by the Wings in April after a standout career with UConn men’s basketball \u2014 top picks have won WNBA Rookie of the Year in each of the last four seasons \u2014 but Miles has become an\u00a0early favorite for the award thanks to a dynamic, do-it-all start to her debut season.<\/p>\n

Here’s how\u00a0Fudd stacks up against Miles exactly one month into her debut WNBA season.<\/p>\n

Azzi Fudd: 12.0 PTS, 1.3 REB, 1.2 AST, 65.6 eFG%
Olivia Miles: 17.2 PTS, 5.0 REB, 6.3 AST, 56.2 eFG%<\/p>\n

Azzi Fudd’s path as a No. 1 overall selection strayed from the normal trajectory almost immediately, as she became the first top pick in nearly a decade to come off the bench in her regular-season debut, scoring just three points in 17 minutes against the Indiana Fever. The former Husky missed Dallas’ next game due to injury and returned for her first matchup with Miles and the Lynx May 14, where the former Notre Dame and TCU star emerged as a decided victor \u2014 Fudd improved with eight points, but Miles delivered an efficient 15 points while dishing out six assists in a 90-86 Minnesota win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Continuing her linear growth, Fudd scored 12 points in consecutive games before her long-awaited breakout performance came just a couple of hours from Storrs against the New York Liberty May 24, dropping 24 points on 9-15 shooting while stuffing the stat sheet with three steals, three blocks and two steals. Fudd’s outburst led to her first career WNBA start in Dallas’ next game, a challenge that the rookie met with another 22-point explosion to erase an early deficit against Las Vegas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fudd’s standout 3-point shooting with the Huskies has certainly translated, shooting 42% from long range on four attempts per game, but it’s her surprising 68% efficiency inside the arc that has elevated her into one of the WNBA’s most efficient scorers. So far this season, the only other WNBA players averaging more than 12 points per game with at least a 65% effective field goal percentage are Chennedy Carter and Kelsey Plum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This pair of scoring outbursts helped\u00a0Fudd largely make up the ground she ceded early in the Rookie of the Year race, rising to a 43% chance of winning the award by May 31, according to prediction market Kalshi. However, Miles punched right back with a series of staggering performances since June 1, averaging 22 points \u2014 this includes a staggering 28-point effort against Golden State where the young point guard shot 8-11 from 3-point range \u2014 and over seven assists per contest while committing just six total turnovers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite Fudd’s dead-eyed shooting, Miles’ all-around contributions have been far more\u00a0impactful for a surging Lynx team through a month of play. As of June 2, Miles\u00a0sits as a -250 favorite to win Rookie of the Year, per bet365. Fudd is listed at +600, while\u00a0Kiki Rice (+750) and\u00a0Flau’jae Johnson (+1000) have the next closest odds.<\/p>\n

Miles’ Rookie of the Year candidacy will hinge on her playing relationship with former UConn great Napheesa Collier, who recently returned to on-court activity as she inches closer to a return. Collier’s 28.5% usage rate returning to a Lynx roster with several proficient scorers may eat into Miles’ opportunities, but the power forward also boasts one of the highest assisted shot rates of any WNBA superstar, allowing Miles to offset this production as a passer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Wings and Lynx will face off Tuesday evening, with the action available on WNBA League Pass and local broadcast affiliates. The action will tip off at 8 p.m. ET from the Target Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA’s top-performing rookies will face off Tuesday evening, as former UConn women’s basketball star\u00a0Azzi Fudd and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[13590,13589,99,434],"class_list":["post-693268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-all-daily-sites","tag-ct-insider","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693268","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=693268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}