DALLAS — The Dallas Wings selected Azzi Fudd with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA draft, reuniting her with former UConn teammate Paige Bueckers. Bueckers, whom the Wings selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 draft, addressed the reunion on draft night.

"Azzi Fudd was a 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 a basketball player, her resilience, her strength and her career-best year at UConn. So, Azzi is her own great individual person, and she should be celebrated as such," Bueckers said.

Bueckers, who was named WNBA rookie of the year last season, also addressed her personal relationship with Fudd, which the two confirmed last year. She said she would not discuss the relationship 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," she said. "We've always conducted ourselves as such, and we've never let anything that happens off the court carry on to the court. That's what we continue to do."

The two players, friends since they were teenagers, won a national title together at UConn. Fudd averaged 17.3 points per game and shot 45 percent from three-point range for the Huskies last season.

"Here I am, no control in where I get drafted, and I get to play with my best friend again. So it really is special," Fudd said.

Wings general manager Curt Miller described the team's evaluation of Fudd. "Words that we heard over and over again in the investigation of her was, a winner, competitor, a hard worker," he said. Miller added that the basketball case for the selection was clear. "Obviously the skill set speaks for itself, an incredible shooter – probably one of the quickest releases in the game today, a defender with a lot of competitiveness and toughness, and, ultimately, all the intangibles that goes along with Azzi in the locker room – being unselfish, being an incredible teammate, being a high-basketball-IQ player. It all pointed us through a very deliberate and thorough process back to Azzi Fudd," he said.

The WNBA season starts on 8 May 2026, with the Wings playing their first game on 9 May against the Indiana Fever.