Azzi Fudd became the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft earlier this month, with the Dallas Wings drafting her and reuniting her with her former UConn teammate, Paige Bueckers.
Along with the standard rookie questions, Fudd also received questions about her relationship with Bueckers, which the latter previously referenced in a TikTok video. During a Wings’ introductory press conference, a media person with the team shut down a reporter’s question about the teammates’ relationship before Fudd could even respond.
That made it an even bigger headline due to the non-responses, but more recently, Bueckers weighed in on the topic. Last year’s No. 1 pick seemed intent on making sure it doesn’t get mentioned throughout the upcoming season.
“Quite frankly, I believe me and Azzi’s personal relationship is nobody’s business but our own. And what we choose to share is completely up to us,” Bueckers said during a Wings media session on Monday.
“We’ve never let anything that happens off the court carry onto the court, and that’s what we’ll continue to do,” she said, later adding, “Azzi Fudd was the No. 1 draft pick because she earned it, and it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with who she is as a human being, who she is the basketball player.”
Along with those remarks, Bueckers said they wouldn’t allow anything that happens off the court to affect them on the court. She mentioned they were professionals, and praised Fudd for being “her own great individual person.”
“I’m not entirely sure if this is new to media members, to social media, to new people who are watching the WNBA, or women’s basketball in general, but me and Azzi are not gonna do this,” she said.
“We’ve been doing this a long time. We have countless reps with it. We have a lot of experience, so we will continue to use that experience to show up and be professionals, great statements, great leaders, the hardest workers who continue to show up and do our jobs to help the Dallas Wings win basketball games,” Bueckers said.
She also said that if future questions come up about their relationship, they’d refer back to this statement or use the time to discuss their teammates and basketball.
“Now that we got that out of the way, I would love to talk basketball,” Bueckers told reporters.
With that, it seems everyone can move on from the relationship questions, which began soon after Fudd was drafted earlier this month by the Wings. Bueckers was there, along with other teammates, to show support for a fellow UConn star’s big night.
The focus now appears to be basketball for a Dallas squad that finished last in the league last season, but is on the verge of a major turnaround thanks to their back-to-back No. 1 picks.
They’ll play a preseason game against Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever on Thursday, April 30, with their first regular-season game arriving on Saturday, May 9, also against the Fever.