Paige Bueckers gave her first and only statement on her relationship with Wings’ No. 1 pick and former Huskies teammate Azzi Fudd at Dallas’s media day on Monday afternoon.
Bueckers kicked off her press conference in Dallas by addressing widespread rumors about her off-court relationship with Fudd. A little less than a year ago, Bueckers confirmed she was dating Fudd at the 2025 WNBA draft. With the Wings’ upcoming season set to get underway in just a few weeks, the Bueckers took the time to clear the air.
“There is something that I wanted to address, and I only plan on addressing it once. If we continue to get asked about it, we will refer to this moment in time, or we will use the time to deflect and talk about our teammates,” Bueckers said. “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.
“But as media members, I understand you guys have a job to do, and you guys have to ask questions about the basketball aspect of it, so that’s what I will be addressing today. Me and Azzi have always been the utmost professional, we’ve always conducted ourselves as such. We've never let anything that happens off the court carry onto the court, and that's what we'll continue to do.
“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 new to this. We’ve 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, continue to show up and do our job and help the Dallas Wings win basketball games.
“To add on to that, 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 as a basketball player. Her resilience, her strength, and her career-best year at UConn. Azzi is her great individual person, her own great individual person, and she should be celebrated as such.”
"Quite frankly, I believe me and Azzi's personal relationship is nobody's business but our own."
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 27, 2026
Paige Bueckers addresses Azzi Fudd's addition to the Dallas Wings. pic.twitter.com/Krm56M6B74
Bueckers’s frank statement comes on the heels of the Wings’ PR team shutting down Dallas Morning News columnist Kevin Sherrington’s question to Fudd about her rumored relationship with Bueckers during Fudd’s introductory press conference with the organization.
“Paige announced last year on TikTok that y’all were a couple, and I’m wondering if that’s still the case, and if so, if y’all have talked to any other couples in the league about how they negotiate that dynamic as pro teammates?” Sherrington asked.
In response, the Wings said that they were going to “respectfully decline” from comments on players’ personal lives.
The viral narrative has since seeped into other WNBA teams, too, with Mercury veteran DeWanna Bonner, who is currently engaged to teammate Alyssa Thomas, also being asked about Fudd and Bueckers at her media availability.
Fudd and Bueckers are back-to-back No. 1 picks out of UConn, where they won one NCAA championship together during Bueckers’s last season with the Huskies. Fudd, however, was unable to cap off her collegiate career with any silverware as the Huskies got knocked out by South Carolina in the Final Four earlier this month. Fudd still put together an impressive fifth and final campaign during which she averaged a career-high 17.1 points per game and shot 44.7% from beyond the arc.
Fudd, Bueckers and the Wings will face their first test together in their road preseason opener against the Indiana Fever on Thursday, April 30.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Paige Bueckers Addresses Her ‘Personal Relationship’ With Azzi Fudd at Wings’ Media Day.
