The Dallas Wings selected point guard Azzi Fudd out of the University of UConn with the first overall pick of the 2026 WNBA draft. While not a consensus first overall pick, Fudd was a First-Team All-American in her senior season with the Huskies and won the national championship in 2025 alongside Dallas’ first overall pick from a season ago, Paige Bueckers.
Despite her accomplished career in Storrs, CT, there was speculation that the Wings selected Fudd in part because of her relationship with Bueckers, which the pair publicly announced on TikTok last year.
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Fudd was asked about the dynamic at her introductory press conference, but Wings PR interjected, saying the franchise would not address its players’ personal lives. Bueckers finally addressed the relationship during the Wings’ media day, but made it clear she didn’t intend to do so again.
“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 stated. “We’ve never let anything that happens off the court carry onto the court, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
On Thursday, former WNBA player and CBS Sports analyst Renee Montgomery spoke about the topic alongside comedian Sarah Tiana and reporter Suzy Shuster on Women’s Sports Now.
Montgomery offered her take on how Fudd and Bueckers could appease the public’s curiosity while staying in control of the narrative.
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“I’d 100% do a Vogue collab together, drop 73 Questions on Vogue, answer all the questions that humans might want to ask, and just answer them then in a high-fashion, dope way, and drop the mic on it,” Montgomery said.
Tiana, a co-host of the show alongside Montgomery, spoke about professional sports leagues as entertainment products and how she feels the pair’s relationship is perfectly viable to cover throughout the season, comparing it to the hypothetical buzz there’d be around a relationship between Lakers teammates LeBron James and Luka Dončić.
“I mean, but I also think that the WNBA, like all sports, is a TV show. Like we’re all invested,” Tiana said. “We want some drama. We wanna know… I do think that there, there is an element where it’s like, I know that this is basketball and I know that you guys, you know, are in a relationship. But like, if LeBron and Luka were dating, it’d be like, yeah, we’re probably going to ask you about that. Like, Luka, uh, how’d you get hurt? Did something happen at home?”
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Shuster acknowledged that the relationship could indeed influence how things play out on the court, which would make its coverage the responsibility of reporters.
“I’ve lived outside of a locker room for three years. And your job is to report what’s happening in there. And I think at some point, at some point, people are wondering, okay, well, how do you keep things professional if there’s an issue? If you guys have an issue in your relationship, how does it not carry over into how you play on the court?”
While it’s clear that Dallas plans to let them decline to comment moving forward, it’s almost inevitable that questions about the relationship will arise again, especially if Dallas struggles, as teams picking first overall tend to do. Media members have an obligation to report accurately on what may be influencing on-court dynamics, and the WNBA wants as many eyes on its product as possible, which could all culminate in a scenario where Fudd, Bueckers, and the Wings have to address the topic directly.
The post ‘Women’s Sports Now’ on Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd relationship: ‘The WNBA, like all sports, is a TV show’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.
